


Retrouvaille

by batonblue



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Big Bang Challenge, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lack of Communication, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Rape/Non-con, Psychological Trauma, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:55:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 60,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27184834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batonblue/pseuds/batonblue
Summary: {roo-trou-vay} French(n.) the joy of meeting or finding someone again after a long separation; rediscoveryMalcolm and JT met in college, but their short-lived romance became a distant memory when Malcolm disappeared without a trace.Ten years later, Malcolm and JT meet again when they find themselves working together on the Major Crimes Unit.  JT is now a detective, while Malcolm is a professor of Criminal Psychology freelancing for the NYPD.The Malcolm of today is withdrawn and scarred, surrounded by mystery. They slowly rekindle their old spark, and JT learns about the dark events that separated them a decade ago.
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright, Malcolm Bright & Dani Powell, Malcolm Bright & JT Tarmel, Malcolm Bright & Jessica Whitly, Malcolm Bright & Martin Whitly, Malcolm Bright/JT Tarmel
Comments: 17
Kudos: 69
Collections: Prodigal Son Big Bang 2020 - Sunday Posts





	1. natsukashii

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jameena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jameena/gifts), [Lennie09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lennie09/gifts).



> PSON 2020! I can't believe we made it! This was a roller coaster ride from start to finish, but I loved every second of working on this story. (Also, thank you for your patience while I put S&M on hold to work on this!)
> 
> A huge shout out to Jameena, who proofread every word of this monster and was amazing helpful with fixing all my blundering errors. Also to Cosmic, who pretty much joined the team to hype me up and keep me running when I didn't even know what I was about to write next. And last but not least, the massively talented Lennie09, who has some amazing artwork on the way to accompany this fic, I've only seen the preview and I'm already drooling.
> 
> Thanks also go to the Pson Big Bang 2020 crew as a whole, and the hype up and sprints and encouragement that ran pretty much nonstop over on the Discord Server over the last several months.
> 
> I love all of you and I can't wait to hear from you! Your feedback keeps me running ok, I'll grovel shamelessly.

**.**

**natsukashii**

{not-sa-ka-shi} Japanese

 _(adj.)_ suddenly, euphorically nostalgic, triggered by experiencing something for the first time in years

**.**

It’s the middle of summer and ninety degrees in the shade. 

JT is holding a red solo cup in his left hand and standing on plush, green grass in his new boss’ backyard. Making an effort to let the beer go warm in his hand so he doesn’t accidentally drink too much and wind up making a fool out of himself. Strings of warm, yellow bulbs hang in lazy loops across the deck, down across the lawn to hook on the wooden privacy fence over flickering tiki lights. The picture of suburban New York bliss.

Lieutenant Arroyo—Gil—JT doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to that first-name-basis thing, is standing at the grill, wearing the ugliest apron he’s ever seen in his life. It’s pink and orange with “Kiss the Cook” scrawled in thick block letters across the front, and it’s too small. Frilled at the edges. Obnoxious in all the wrong ways, but Gil doesn’t seem bothered in the least that he’s probably blinding anyone who looks at him too long.

It’s Jackie’s doing, of course, because no one in their right mind would ever say no to the woman. She scolded her husband in Spanish from across the yard when she spotted him grilling in his polo, throwing the ugly thing over his head and planting a kiss on his cheek before whirling away again to entertain her guests. 

It’s JT’s first time meeting her, and if he’s being honest, he’s teetering somewhere between feeling impressed and terrified. Jackie is a hurricane force of a woman with glittering eyes and thick, dark hair floating around her shoulders, defying gravity. Bright white teeth are always showing because she’s always laughing, doubled-over like she just heard the world’s greatest joke, unashamed to let peals of joy ring loud through the crowded yard. All sunshine and vibrant life in a flowered, yellow dress, her presence is infectious. 

Wherever she goes, laughter follows.

JT catches Gil staring at her sometimes. Just watching her with that dopey, happy smile on his face like he hasn’t been married to the woman for fifteen years. Like he’s just now seeing her for the first time and he’s already smitten. It would almost be sappy if it didn’t make something in the cop’s chest squeeze up just a little. He can’t remember ever meeting two people so in love. 

He forces himself to look away, feeling like he’s intruding on something that isn’t his to see. If he’s being brutally honest with himself, maybe there’s the tiniest sliver of jealousy hidden somewhere in there, too. That spine-deep, wistful tangle of _maybes_ and _almosts_. All the little moments in his life he let slip away that might have led him to have something like this, too. A partner. A family. An unbelievably boring backyard barbecue that’s somehow anything but. Full of family and friends and displaced cops who don’t quite fit in yet.

Less because he’s hungry and more to keep himself looking occupied, JT wanders over to the food tables. He finds himself standing in front of a low, wooden bench draped in a plastic tablecloth loaded with sliced fruit on one side and an impressive platter of cookies and cupcakes on the other. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure style test of will, and in the end JT, loads his plate up with both because he believes in balance. 

There are a lot of cops here; it’s an informal work thing, after all. A crew of guys from the 16th precinct. Some of them JT knows already, but most he’s only seen in passing. It’s a little strange to imagine himself belonging here, now.

Because he does. Or maybe he will, eventually. For now, he’s showing up awkwardly in his wrinkled dress shirt with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows because he doesn’t own much by way of dress casual. Grinning his thanks to every stranger that slaps him on the back and tells him congratulations.

_Congrats on making it. Welcome to the team. You’ve got a roller coaster ahead of you, kid._

Making Major Crimes is a promotion on paper, at least. He’s been moonlighting in investigations for the past year already, but he usually works mundane property crimes and white-collar bullshit. Stolen social security numbers, credit card fraud. Commercial burglaries with no physical evidence, the kind of cases that spiral into empty pits on the _Cleared: Inactive_ list, never to see the light of day again. Single-handedly padding the NYPD’s clearance rates and earning that yearly holiday bonus the city council always throws their way like a limp-wristed handshake. Not exactly the most glamorous job.

That’s all about to change, he hopes. Maybe now that he’s working with Gil, the man who dragged the Major Crimes Unit back from the brink of extinction through countless sleepless nights and sheer willpower… maybe now he can really make a difference. 

JT polishes off the strawberries on his plate and decides he really didn’t need two cookies—they’re too sweet and unfamiliar and somehow spicy—but he eats those, too, because he’s not about to get caught tossing food in the trash. 

“Tarmel!” Gil calls him over, and the cop is grateful to have something to do besides stand there.

Without being asked, he dips into one of the open coolers and grabs a Corona. Passes it to Gil as he wanders into the scalding heat coming off the massive grill.

“Thanks, kid,” the lieutenant grins at him, and maybe he’s already a little drunk. “Kissing up already. You’ll fit right in.”

JT laughs because he’s supposed to laugh, because this is what normal people do. They go to barbecues and drink beer and make friends with crowds of people who all seem infinitely more comfortable and relaxed than he is.

“Didn’t want to overwhelm you,” Gil goes on, flipping charred burgers with a practiced grace that doesn’t do his current level of intoxication any justice. “But ehhh, I guess a few more people showed up than I expected.”

JT sucks on his teeth and raises an eyebrow at the crowd. “Can’t blame ‘em,” he opts for neutrality. “I hear you make a mean burger.”

The cop has heard no such thing, but it was clearly the right thing to say. Gil’s chest puffs up in pride. 

“Only the best.”

Jackie’s screech of excitement carries over the roar of laughter from the detectives gathered on the lawn, playing some bizarre game with beanbags. JT’s eyes are drawn to her, all but shoving her way to the gate to wrap a latecomer in a massive hug. 

Gil doesn’t seem to notice whatever commotion is about to intrude on his backyard. “So, you ready to put that duty belt away? Trade up for some new duds?”

“Absolutely,” JT lies. He hasn’t actually shopped for clothes in a couple years and the idea of starting now makes him panic a bit. 

“Don’t worry, I can get you started if you don’t mind hand-me-downs. A couple of suits for court, interviews and all that, should do the trick.”

“No offense, LT, but we might be shopping in different sections.” JT eyes Gil’s slender build, the envy of a man of his years, and then gestures to his own large frame.

“ _Mi amor_ , look who finally decided to join us!” Jackie makes her appearance in an explosion of color and wide smiles, dragging her helpless victim along by the shoulders. 

“Malcolm!” Gil’s face lights up, and he drops the tongs on the grill without fanfare.

And that’s all it takes. It’s right there, in an unfamiliar yard full of unfamiliar people, that a ghost of the past in a suit jacket steps back into JT’s life. Live and in living color.

Malcolm. 

JT stares at gaunt blue eyes. The ugly scar that runs from his chin up over his cheekbone, almost imperceptible until the kid turns and the light hits it just right. It’s him, and it isn’t.

He knows him, he thinks. Doesn’t he?

Of course he does. It’s been a long time, but he thinks he’d recognize Malcolm Whitly anywhere. The kid just made that kind of impression. Ripples and memories that are reaching out now, spanning a full decade, and reminding JT of a time when he was young and reckless. Optimistic. Hopeful. His armor thin enough that blue eyes and wide smiles still had the power to hurt him when they disappeared without a trace.

“Gil,” Malcolm smiles like a man who hasn’t slept in days and does his best to return the older man’s heartfelt hug. 

“I didn’t think you were gonna make it! You never texted back.”

Malcolm has the good grace to look a little embarrassed at that comment, smiling as he babbles out an apology that Jackie is already waving off. 

“But he’s here now, that’s all that matters! Let me get you a drink, my love. And food— _¡Dios, ten piedad!_ —you haven’t been eating. Look at you!”

“I eat,” Malcolm protests. “I swear, it’s just—been a long week.”

“You say that every week!”

“Well, there’s summer classes, and the new semester is starting soon, so there’s been a lot of prepwork—”

It’s at about this moment that Malcolm’s eyes finally meet JT’s, and both of them forget how to speak properly. It’s a click of sudden understanding. Shock and disbelief like a punch to the gut.

“How rude! Introduce your friend!” Jackie swats Gil’s arm without any malice, seeming to forget that she’s the one who failed to introduce anyone.

“Sorry,” Gil wipes spotless hands on his ugly apron, dropping a fond hand onto Malcolm’s shoulder. “Detective Tarmel, let me introduce Malcolm Bright. Possibly the smartest and most infuriating man I know.”

“My Malcolm is the son we never had,” Jackie dotes over the blue-eyed man shamelessly, smothering him with another hug that rocks him from side-to-side. “I’ll make you a drink, _cariño_. The way you like it, yes?”

It’s not a question, and it’s clear Malcolm knows it. He thanks her with that tired smile and presses a distracted kiss to her cheek when she demands it.

“Malcolm Bright,” JT forces himself to say, trying out the new name. The new face layered over an old one like peeling paint. “That’s a hell of a name.”

Malcolm swallows visibly, and JT can’t read him. He supposes he never could.

“Want a drink, kid?” Gil, buzzed or distracted or both, isn’t getting a read on the tension between the two men. 

“Jackie’s getting me one,” Malcolm says gently, smiling.

“Oh, yes—she just said that.” Gil laughs, closing the lid to the grill. JT wonders if letting the older man near an open flame right now is really the best idea.

“JT’s coming on board at the perfect time,” Gil gushes on about work, completely oblivious to the unspoken exchange taking place between the two men. 

JT’s not even sure what he says after that. He can’t look away from Malcolm. He always joked that the kid would fill out his suits someday, but it’s clear that never quite came to pass. Malcolm’s as thin as ever, shadows still hanging like permanent tattoos beneath his eyes, and that’s all familiar. Like he just stepped out of the past with a limp and a scar, but otherwise, he’s the same kid JT used to know. Used to love. 

Jackie saves the day when she reappears with a drink as promised. It’s in a real glass, tall and dripping condensation. 

“I made it a little stronger for you,” she says as she presses it into Malcolm’s hands. “You look like you could use it, _mi cariño_.”

It’s at this brief moment, sensing his opening, that JT seriously considers making his escape. Fading back into the crowd of people, jostling and elbowing each other, half-drunk. He could snag one of the detectives, bend his ear about work. He could find one of the old boots from the precinct and swap war stories. Anything and everything it takes to distract him, to drag him away from the loaded silence.

He’s not that lucky. Or maybe, he’s just not that decisive. He doesn’t hear the excuse, the parting words as Jackie drags Gil away. He only knows that he finds himself standing there by the grill, a half-empty plastic cup in his hand and a man he hasn’t seen in ten years standing just out of arm's reach.

Malcolm looks at him. Just looks, saying nothing. Not really making direct eye contact, like he’s focusing on something right over his shoulder. 

“So, uh. It’s been a long time.” JT winces inwardly at how bad that sounds. The understatement of the century. 

“Yeah, it has,” Malcolm says quietly. Like he’s far away, or maybe still in disbelief. The situation is just surreal enough that JT can’t blame him in the slightest.

The cop stares down into his beer, thinks _to hell with it_ and polishes the cup off with a long swig. 

“Did you… did you graduate?” Malcolm sounds awkward, too. Unsure, hesitant. Not at all the way JT remembers him.

“Uh, kinda. Cobbled together a bachelor’s. Criminal Justice.” It feels forced to make small talk like this, and that’s all wrong, too. 

“I guess you figured out what you wanted to do with your life after all.” Malcolm smiles a little as he says it, and JT glances at him just in time to catch the way that massive scar wrinkles at the corner of his lip. 

It tugs at his heartstrings a little. To see that scar, to hear that, to know that all these years later Malcolm remembered. He remembers watching JT scramble to get his life figured out, twenty-two years old, skinny, fresh off his last deployment. Floundering for solid ground in the civilian world as he rode his G.I. Bill to what he hoped would be some kind of life plan. 

He’s still not good at that, he thinks. Planning.

“I guess I did,” JT hears himself say, and he’s still staring at Malcolm. Thinking he’s changed completely and somehow, not at all.

Malcolm catches him looking, and maybe a lifetime ago, he would have made a joke. Teased him, said something sarcastic. The Malcolm of today drops his gaze away instead, and there’s something that reads too much like shame hiding in his eyes.

“What about you?” It’s still awkward. Still not the question JT really wants to ask.

“Harvard.” Malcolm won’t look at him now, holding the drink Jackie gave him in his hand and shifting on his feet like he can’t get comfortable. 

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” Malcolm’s eyes flicker up, and the cop finally sees a hint of that old spirit in him. Pride and cockiness and confidence and all the things that drew JT in so quickly. “I teach now.”

JT blinks in surprise. “You're a professor?”

“Criminal psychology.”

“Oh.” JT doesn’t know how to process that. Suddenly, the measly bachelor’s degree he spent five years patching together seems strangely insignificant in comparison. “Wow, that’s… that must be how you know Gil, I guess.”

“Something like that.”

They fall silent, history hanging in the air between them like a guillotine blade. Hard to look at, harder still to avoid.

“Congratulations, by the way.” Malcolm says it abruptly, like he just remembered.

JT swirls his empty cup and tries to figure that one out.

“On making it—on getting into Major Crimes,” Malcolm plows on, “I know Gil said he was hosting tonight to welcome a new team member, I didn’t know it was… I never caught a name.”

“It's okay,” JT feels the need to say for some reason. “And yeah, appreciate it. I guess you’ve known him longer than I have, so… he seems like he’d be a good boss, y’know.”

Malcolm nods emphatically at that, looking relieved to have clambered through that conversation. He’s still shifting, putting all his weight on his left leg. 

JT bites his lip to avoid asking. Prying. He doesn’t have the right anymore, if he ever did. If ten years of heartbreak and wallowing introspection taught him anything, it’s that. That his greatest mistake was overestimating his own importance in Malcolm’s life. 

The sun is going down but the temperature isn’t, and the hot air is seeping through his skin, leaving him feeling queasy and sticky and off-balance. At least, he tells himself it’s all the heat.

Jackie wanders over, and she’s been drinking like a fish all night but she’s as graceful on her feet as ever. She mutters something playful under her breath, elbowing Malcolm in the side. “You met our new family member, no? He drinks like Gil; he’ll fit right in.”

“Actually, Jackie…” Malcolm offers up one of those sheepish almost-smiles. “Detective Tarmel and I have met before. Back in college.”

Something flashes across Jackie’s face, sharp and almost cold. She eyes Malcolm with a meaning JT can’t catch. 

“Before I transferred,” Malcolm clarifies, looking right at her.

“Ah, I had no idea! It’s such a small world, isn’t it?”

From the way she says it, JT thinks maybe the world isn’t really all that small. 

“ _Mijo_ , let me show you the garden,” she says abruptly. It sounds like a subject change; JT is sure it’s nothing of the sort.

Malcolm fires off an apologetic look at the cop, but he’s powerless to resist as Jackie drags him away. The kid limps heavily, and that’s new, too. It doesn’t seem to slow him down much, or Jackie for that matter. Drunk or not, the gathered cops are quick to fan out of her way as she pushes through.

And just as quickly as he reappeared, Malcolm is gone again. Blinking out of existence like a light switch flipped off. It sits heavy in his gut like a bad meal. JT goes for another beer, and the first swig tastes sour for reasons he can’t decipher. 

It hurts in a way it shouldn’t to watch Malcolm disappear again, but that’s an understatement, too. It _hurt_ when Malcolm left the first time, ten years ago. Vanishing from a college dorm without warning. Without so much as a goodbye. Like whatever little spark existed between them was nothing more than a figment of his imagination. 

Only to show up again now, in Lieutenant Arroyo’s backyard on a hot summer evening in New York.

JT has more questions now than he ever did, and that’s a tough pill to swallow. All questions, no answers. Briefly, the cop wonders if this strange reunion was his chance at closure. Mostly he wonders what the hell happened to Malcolm between college and now that left him looking so haunted and tired, left that ugly scar on his cheek. If it’s something he has any right to know or if he’s just overstepping. Making it all out to be something it isn’t.

At the end of the day, he figures it’s none of his business, anyways. Running into an old flame threw him for a loop, got his mind buzzing and misfiring and coming to all sorts of crazy conclusions. 

He stays at Gil’s for another couple hours, or it might have been all night. He finds himself lost and drifting, so far removed from what’s happening around him that he doesn’t catch names, conversations. Anything. Instead, he thinks of hunched shoulders and tired blue eyes and replays his awkward conversation with Malcolm. Trying to make sense of the surreal situation. 

JT never expected to see the kid again, here of all places, and it took a long time to make peace with that. With letting things go, losing his chance at closure. Now, he’s resetting everything he ever believed, and he’s only left with more questions. The kind he’s tried so hard to avoid for years on end. 

It’s none of his business, he repeats to himself as he drinks, moderation a lost cause. A cold reminder. What’s to even say he’ll ever see Malcolm Bright again?


	2. mágoa

**.**

**mágoa**

{mah-goh’ah} Portuguese

_ (n.) _ a heartbreaking feeling that leaves long-lasting traces, visible in gestures and facial expressions

**.**

It’s the middle of the night, and JT’s eyes are throbbing. He’s feeling the lack of sleep, lack of caffeine. Lack of comprehension when it comes to what exactly he’s doing here in the first place. 

Malcolm sits across the table from him, and it’s hard not to stare. 

The cop has had a little over two days to try to right the world on its tilted axis, to bring himself back into balance after that night at Gil’s. To recover from the blinding curveball that came with seeing Malcolm again after ten years of radio silence. 

Fast forward to tonight, the team rounded up by a midnight call from their Lieutenant. Sitting in a darkened boardroom downtown, listening to a pretty blonde woman who seems entirely too energetic for the late hour as she briefs them on their new case.

Her name is Eve—JT already lost track of her last name—and it’s clear she’s doing her best to inject her own passion and enthusiasm into her blank-faced audience. She’s a private attorney on retainer with the DA’s office. From what JT understands, which probably isn’t much, she specializes in human trafficking cases and frequently works with the NYPD to bring charges against potential suspects in cases like this one. 

That’s the long and short of it. It’s a human trafficking case, and the Lieutenant already gave them the rundown version of raided freighters and shipping containers set up with beds and toilets, a paper trail to a midway point stash house in the warehouse district. Too many numbers and names spit out at them for full comprehension.

JT’s distracted, and he’d feel bad about that under other circumstances. He probably isn’t making the greatest impression when it comes to his first case with the team, but he can’t find it in him to care. Dani is slumped in her chair, shielding her eyes with one hand and cradling a cup of coffee she hasn’t actually touched in the other. He figures she looks even worse than he does at the moment.

“Where was the safehouse?” Malcolm is the only one awake enough to participate in the briefing, leaning forward in his chair, his right leg stretched out in front of him. 

“Sterling and Woodlawn,” Eve shuffles through a stack of paperwork on the table, yanking out a lineup. “We think there are others, but we have that one for sure. One of our earlier victims picked out this man,” she taps the matching mugshot and passes the paper to Malcolm.

“His name is Daniel Enriquez. He has a laundry list of priors, including a recent charge for trafficking that was dropped based on another suspect’s confession.”

Gil is trying his damndest to track, but it’s clear he’s not firing on all cylinders either. “Drug trafficking or human?”

“Both. Running mules across the harbor. Undocumented workers. I know he gets brought in a lot, but somehow, he always makes it off on a technicality.”

“A technicality amounting to another convenient confession, I’m guessing.”

“Always. We believe they’re working for a man named Emilliano DeSantis, a real estate developer. Word is, he’s getting ready to dip his toes into local politics, too. So far, we haven’t been able to convince anyone to testify against him.” 

“Must be a big operation if they can pay off scapegoats.”

“Potentially, it’s massive.” Eve pauses to run a hand through her long hair. “Our running theory is that they’re running up and down the coast, shipping in from Cuba. How far it all reaches is really anybody’s guess.” 

JT stares at the side of Malcolm’s head and listens to the same looping questions grind through his brain. Circular mysteries. 

He didn’t expect to see him again so soon. To be working with him like this, sitting in the same room. Maybe that was too optimistic of him. Knowing how close Gil is to the kid, how short they are on manpower. It makes sense to pull a profiler in on this… doesn’t it? 

“DeSantis is a project for the long haul, but we can bring Enriquez in tonight for questioning. I’ll get a squad on tracking him down,” Gil is saying, waking up a little faster than most of his team.

“We couldn’t have done this in the morning?” Dani gripes from behind her coffee mug. Her eyes are bloodshot, and there’s a tired line hanging at the edge of her mouth.

“I understand the hour isn’t exactly convenient,” Eve retorts in a tone that suggests she doesn’t exactly care, either. “But these are human lives we’re talking about. Every second counts.”

Dani opens her mouth to say something back, and from the look on her face JT guesses it wasn’t going to be very polite. Luckily, Gil cuts in.

“We’ll get to work right away. We don’t handle a lot of cases like this one, so thank you for your help, Miss Blanchard. We’re lucky to have built such a good working relationship with the DA's office, so we’re happy to assist where we can.”

JT still isn’t sure what exactly they’re doing, what they can possibly accomplish in the middle of the night, but he keeps his mouth shut. It seems like the smartest course of action, given the circumstances and the general air of disgruntled exhaustion. 

“Of course,” Eve’s easy smile would be stunning if it wasn’t sometime after midnight. “I’ve taken the liberty of forwarding the files we have to your team.”

That’s apparently their signal to break because Dani is out of her chair and making a beeline for the coffee machine before JT even gets his bearings. Gil speaks in hushed tones with Eve, and the handful of other officers shuffle listlessly out of the room, speaking quietly amongst themselves. 

Malcolm heaves himself to his feet gracelessly, and JT makes a point to look away. Pretending that the way the kid is favoring his right side like he can barely stand to put any weight on it isn’t screaming out at him like sirens.

“We need to put together a short list,” the kid is mumbling, which is maybe the only outward sign that he’s as exhausted as the rest of them. “See who we can round up. What charges we can compile to build a deal, get them to flip on the incoming shipment.”

“Let us handle that,” Gil slides the file out from under Malcolm’s fingers. “In the meantime, since you insist on being here, I want you on this interview.”

“There are going to be more than a few interviews happening tonight,” Malcolm protests mildly.

“And you’ll be there. You can only be in one place at a time, kid.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Tarmel,” Gil slides the file across the table. “You’re on this.”

JT catches it, trying not to look thrown by the sudden attention. “You sure about that, boss?”

Gil huffs out a laugh, throwing a pointed look after Dani. “I got limited options right now. Think you’re up to it?”

JT hesitates, glancing at Malcolm. The kid won’t look at him, and for some reason that stings. 

The cop forces a smile, spreads his palm down flat on the file. “Absolutely.”

**.**

JT watches through the two-way mirror, studying the hulking mountain of a man sitting at the table on the other side. He’s wearing a dark t-shirt and one hand is cuffed to the bar anchored to the flat surface. Completely still. Completely silent.

Enriquez is a lot bigger in person than he looked in his mug shot.

Their suspect is just staring at the table, his eyes strangely focused like he’s reading or watching something instead of just staring into space. It’s a little unnerving, if he’s being truthful. 

“He thinks he’s not gonna crack,” Malcolm says from beside JT’s shoulder. The sudden voice almost makes the cop jump. 

“You think different.”

Malcolm smiles at the glass, and he still won’t budge, still won’t make eye contact. He’s somehow acting like all of this is completely normal and they’ve been working together seamlessly for years.

“I know it.”

JT squints back through the glass, wondering what exactly Malcolm sees that he can’t. What he’s reading in the rigid shoulders and hunched posture. There’s nothing there to see, nothing that he can catch. 

He hopes Malcolm is damn good at his job. 

“Shall we?” Malcolm pauses with his hand on the door, directing the question at JT without really looking at him. It’s a habit that’s grating on the cop’s nerves.

“Let’s get this over with.”

Enriquez stares at them as they come in. There’s a heavy blankness to his eyes, like a shield he’s put up. 

_ Fuck the police. _ JT can almost hear it now. 

But it’s not his job to read ahead in the script. Just to spit out his lines and make his reports. Looking evil in the eye from three feet away and pretending to buy the old lies. 

“Mr. Enriquez. We intercepted a shipping container coming from Cuba, as I’m sure you’re aware.” JT throws down a black and white picture. There’s a gritty line through it because it came off the bullpen printer and they’re always out of ink. In this particular instance, he doesn’t think it matters much. 

“Never seen it.” 

JT sighs through his nose, trying to keep it quiet so he doesn’t give away any of his exhaustion and defeat. “Your name is on the shipping manifest.”

“I just sign off on the cargo. Ain’t got a clue what’s in any of ‘em.”

“You knew what was in this one, didn’t you?” Malcolm chimes in, stepping closer to the table. 

JT listens to his shoe scuff on the concrete and wonders how he forgot the kid was there. Again.

Enriquez stares at Malcolm. Looks at him with that same eerie, expressionless shield up over his eyes like a glazed film. He doesn’t answer right away.

JT looks between the two men, feels his eyebrows go up. He makes an effort to school his features because he can’t be giving anything away here. He’s proud of his work record, his tenure and experience, but even he has to admit that dragging a civilian consultant into an interview room with him is brand new territory. 

“Who’re you,” Enriquez asks quietly. 

“I’m a contractor,” Malcolm says conversationally, helping himself to the seat next to JT. 

The cop resists the urge to pull him back because their suspect’s only wearing one cuff and the man’s big enough that he could reach across the table, if he had a mind to be stupid. He could do a lot of damage, too, if his coiled muscles and wide shoulders are any indication. 

“Civilian?” That shield flickers down, and it’s brief. Uncalculated. “NYPD ain’t what they used to be, I guess. Callin’ in backup.”

“You know why we’re here, right?” Malcolm seems pretty confident so JT lets him run with it, curious to see where this will go. 

“You want me to flip on somebody. Too bad there really ain’t nobody to flip on. You dumbasses are wasting your time and taxpayer dollars.”

“Not something you need to worry about, right? After all, you’re still a Cuban nationalist.”

Something sparks then, ugly and dark. “For now.”

“You’re applying for a move here, to New York. You’ve been working the same job for six years and only just now put in. Why is that?”

“That’s my business.”

“Catching a trafficking charge would throw a wrench into that business, wouldn’t it? We’d hate to see something like petty drug running keep you from moving into the country.”

JT remains silent, floored. Wondering how the hell Malcolm came up with all this in the matter of forty minutes. The forty minutes it took a squad car to round up Enriquez and haul him in.

“You’re a nosy little shit, ain't you?”

“That’s what they pay me for.”

“And you’re here cause mean-mug over here ain’t up to task.” This jab is accompanied by a dirty look thrown JT’s way.

“I’m here to prove you’re lying.” Malcolm doesn’t bother waiting for a reaction. He slaps down the file labeled  _ Enriquez  _ on the table. “You’ve got two kids back in Matanzas.”

That little flicker is back in those dark eyes. Enriquez doesn’t reply.

“One of them is quite young, isn’t she? Two years old. The other is turning six. That coincides with your employment for DeSantis—or whatever name you know him by—which I somehow doubt is a coincidence. If I had to guess, you were expecting a child. Maybe you realized how much money it costs to raise a kid in today’s economy, then along comes this opportunity… good money, low risk, the way you saw it. But that job pulled you in, didn’t it? It wasn’t what you thought it was.”

JT watches Enriquez, and Enriquez watches Malcolm. The man’s not an easy nut to crack, but the profiler is clearly hitting him where it hurts. Digging at personal details the man wasn’t prepared to face.

Malcolm’s watching, too, and whatever he sees eggs him on. He’s relentless, pushing like a lawyer in a courtroom. “But the money got better, and it kept coming. And you didn’t get caught, and that’s how they dragged you in. And now you’re  _ here _ . At a crossroads, where you have to choose between your family and your job.”

“You still don’t know what you’re talking about.” Enriquez says it with real venom, his defenses slipping. “Fuckin’ cops, you’re all the same.” 

There’s a defensiveness to the man’s voice that wasn’t there before. A crack in the armor. Malcolm’s eyes light up when he sees it, but JT just sees danger.

“Kid,” JT tries to interject, tries to reach out and grab Malcolm’s arm. The profiler shrugs him off, a hint of something manic shining in his eyes.

“Your kids are going to grow up without you. You’re going to sit in prison because you were loyal to the wrong people. Because you didn’t have the balls to stand up for yourself, for your family—”

“If I go down, they’re taken care of.” Enriquez’ voice is rising. Fists clenched, the chain of the handcuffs creaking ominously. 

“By who? The same guy who’s taking care of you? You know that’s a lie; they won’t take care of your kids. Nobody but you can do that. You can take care of them by making sure you go back to them, and right now? You’re failing them.”

“Shut up,” Enriquez is almost shouting. 

“I think that’s enough,” JT warns, half-standing out of his chair. This time, he tries a little harder to pull Malcolm away, and the profiler yanks his arm back.

“You’re going to rot in prison, and you won’t see them grow up. And who knows what they’re going to have to do to survive over there without you. Who knows if they’ll end up on one of those boats—”

JT catches it a split second before it happens. Enriquez surges to his feet, the metal shaking with the force. He lunges across the table, and he’s exactly as fast as the detective was worried he’d be. JT pulls Malcolm back, and those massive, reaching hands only miss the profiler by a hair’s breadth. The chairs skitter away behind them, tipping over.

Malcolm jerks back and trips, and JT’s not quick enough, not focused enough to catch him as he crashes to the floor. At least the kid is out of harm’s way.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Enriquez roars, his voice echoing in the empty room like cannon fire. “Let me outta this thing and I’ll break you in half, you little shit! You don't know shit, you hear me? Nothing!”

JT drags Malcolm to his feet, pounds his fist on the door. It creaks open quickly, and he shoves the profiler out into the hallway, his heart pounding in his chest as he listens to the handcuffs rattle and shake. 

Malcolm is breathing hard, too, oblivious to the rush of movement as two uniformed officers head in to take control of the suspect. He raises a shaky hand to push his hair out of his eyes.

“What the hell was that?” JT gives the kid a shake, forcing himself to unclench the fist he has wrapped up in Malcolm’s jacket.

“A reaction,” Bright says, and his voice is a little shaky, too, as he straightens himself up against the wall.

“If we ever had a chance of turning him, it’s gone now,” the cop grumbles, feeling a little embarrassed by his own outburst. By how scared it made him to see Malcolm in danger like that. He hates how quickly it all came back, how time seemed to rewind. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Malcolm is still a little winded, trying to find solid ground again.

“You think he’s gonna talk now? You’ve lost your mind.”

“Probably,” the profiler smiles, all bright white teeth flashing under glowing eyes. “But he’s not thinking about his boss anymore, is he?” 

**.**

Thirty minutes later, Enriquez flips. Has one of the precinct officers call JT back in, specifically requesting that Malcolm not be included in the conversation. 

JT’s reluctantly impressed, and more than a little satisfied by Malcolm’s absence. It gives him one less thing to worry about, one less distraction. He slides two lined sheets of statement paper across to Enriquez along with a single flex pen. By design, it isn’t strong enough to stab him with.

Enriquez bends his head down to the table and writes.

JT watches him, thinking he’s getting too old to be surprised.

If there’s one thing he knows for sure, Malcolm really  _ is _ damn good at his job. And apparently, just as headstrong and reckless as ever.

**.**

JT sits in the boardroom and listens to Malcolm read Enriquez’ statement out loud. 

“I make monthly trips with the cargo ship from Port Havana, Cuba to the New York shipping port. We bring 50 people sometimes. They work in the shops for Devee, or they get sent down by train to Jersey. I don’t know where they go from there. I want my charges dropped if I testify.”

“Shit, kid,” Gil breathes, shaking his head hard. “That’s gold, right there.”

“We gotta keep him on the line long enough to testify,” Dani points out, and JT doesn’t really wanna know how many cups of coffee it took her to get to the point where she’s making sense again. 

“We can,” Malcolm insists, setting down the scribbled sheets carefully. “We found his motivation. Leverage.”

“Cold-blooded,” JT jabs without any real weight behind it. He’s as impressed as Gil is at how fast Malcolm got Enriquez to flip.

“Everyone has something they care about more than themselves,” the profiler muses, staring at the scattered papers with a distant cast to his eyes.

For some reason, that hits JT, reminds him why he can’t stay focused. Why he felt so off-kilter coming in on this case. It wasn’t aimed at him, but damn if those words still don’t ring true.

It’s two o’clock in the morning by the time they clear out. File out of the room and turn the lights off. 

Malcolm catches a ride with Gil, and JT stares after him, watching him limp. 

He can’t imagine what’s going through Malcolm’s head. How he’s taking all this in stride, or if he’s just pretending. 

JT’s not brave enough to ask. To pull Malcolm aside and demand answers for a decade of questions, building up in his chest like steam in a pressure cooker. He wishes he was, wishes this wasn’t hitting him so hard. Salt in a wound he thought had healed over a long time ago. 

Because even now, watching him walk away, he’s wondering if this is it all over again. The last time he’ll ever see the kid. It’s senseless and illogical and foolish, and all the things JT thought he left behind in his youth. All the progress he made, reset in the space of a few days.

Now, more than anything, he wants to know what happened: what could have possibly pulled Malcolm out of his life so suddenly and violently, and dropped him back into it again. Now of all times. 

He needs to know if it’s all coincidence or fate or some other kind of bullshit he doesn’t believe in.

It’s not the time to ask, so he doesn’t try. Doesn’t say anything. Instead, he stays silent and drives himself home.

**.**

The team pushes back their morning briefing until ten o’clock, but it still comes too early. 

In the harsh light of day, Malcolm is nowhere to be seen, and somehow that’s both a relief and a disappointment all rolled up into one confusing ball of emotions. 

By now, last night feels like a lifetime ago. JT has achieved that comfortably numb level of exhaustion that leaves him floating, feeling removed from his own limbs. His head is pounding. 

The cop isn’t sure what his battle plan is, which is assuming he even has one, but he sees his opening when Gil traipses into his office. The older man walks with his head down, absorbed in whatever he’s reading. It’s not exactly an invitation to be interrupted, but he’ll take what he can get. JT follows him quickly, knocking at the open door and waiting to be ushered inside.

“Lieutenant,” JT clears his throat and nods at his boss. Maybe it’s a lingering unease from his patrol days, but walking into a hard-stripe’s office still never fails to set his teeth on edge. 

“Call me Gil,” Arroyo repeats with infinite patience for the tenth time. 

“Gil,” JT corrects himself. Finds himself casting a discrete eye around them, at the open door. Wondering if he finally has the balls to bring up what he wants to.

“Shut the door,” Gil tells him, reading him like a book. 

JT is quick to obey, feeling relieved at the relative privacy that closes around them like a bubble.

“What’s wrong,” Gil asks him, without looking up from his computer. “Regretting that transfer already?”

“Not exactly,” the cop hedges, clasping his untouched mug with both hands and trying to figure out how to word his question. He opts to dive right in, before he loses his nerve entirely. 

“I need to ask about Malcolm. Er, Bright.” He’s still getting used to the kid’s new name, another mystery with no answers.

That gets the lieutenant’s attention, and he pauses his typing to look up.

“What about him?”

“How, uh… how do you know him again?”

“Well, that’s kind of a long story.”

JT raises an eyebrow and pulls out the chair in front of Gil’s desk, helping himself to a seat with deliberate calm. “I got time,” JT measures his words carefully. 

Gil purses his lips and lets out a long breath through his nose, pushing back in his computer chair. It creaks beneath him. “To put it all in a nutshell? He saved my life. Years and years ago. From his own father, actually.”

JT blinks. Another curveball. “How many years are we talking?”

“Fifteen or so, by now.” 

JT tries not to let it show how that shakes him. Gil’s known Malcolm for years, then. Knew him long before JT ever met him. That little bombshell about the kid’s father isn’t exactly subtle, either. The cop figures there’s a chance he never knew Malcolm as well as he thought, and that’s another layer to add to his struggle, the conflict raging in his brain like a summer storm.

“You know, I met him... back in college.” It’s an understatement, to put it mildly.

“Jackie mentioned that.”

JT stalls out, trying to figure out what to say next. How much he can give away or if it’s even his place to be having this conversation in the first place.

“We were close, actually, and… he just disappeared. Out of the blue. Never heard a word from him after that.”

Gil is silent for a moment, working at his lip with his teeth. “This sounds like a conversation you should be having with Malcolm, not with me.” The lieutenant is spinning absently in his chair, back and forth, an inch or two at a time. 

JT grinds his teeth, wondering why everyone is being so damn difficult about this. “You’re right,” he forces himself to say. “I don’t know why I asked.”

He stands quickly, feeling frustrated and a little angry for reasons he can’t exactly pin down. 

“JT,” Gil calls after him, sounding strangely defeated. 

The cop pauses at the door, working his jaw before he chances a look back. 

“Just… Bright’s been through a lot. Things aren’t quite as simple as you might think.”

“They never are, huh?”

JT pulls the door open and leaves. 

**.**

They hit the shipyard the next night, signed warrant in hand. 

It was tough getting the judge to sign off on indiscriminately sifting through shipping containers, but Enriquez’ signed confession and a gift-wrapped immunity deal is enough to tip him over the edge. On top of all that, elections are coming up. Reminding city officials that a human trafficking cleanup would sound pretty damn good on the news is a card they’re not afraid to play. Not with so much on the line.

Uniformed boots pitch in to file the crew off the ship, one or two at a time. Some go in cuffs, cursing and screaming their indignation to anyone listening. Nobody is. Most of them are undocumented workers and ex-cons, and they have it in their heads that this is an immigration raid. Port Authority elbowing in on forged work visas and employment records, playing clean-up. It’s unlikely many of them even suspect the kind of cargo they’ve really been working with.

Malcolm puts his skills to good use by working the crew. He talks a defensive shiphand into pointing out their target: a long metal box the size of a freight car lined up with a hundred others like it on the flat deck. Saving them what was bound to be a long search, because of course there’s no organization to the towering columns. No way to make heads or tails of it.

The kid is indispensable like that, the cop thinks, and not for the first time. Always ready to remind them why Gil relies on him so heavily. JT didn’t quite get it at first. Wasn’t sure why their team needed to pull a civilian in on high-profile cases, wondering what Malcolm could possibly bring to the table that they didn’t already have. He’s starting to see it now. 

JT finds himself holding his breath as they unlock the chains and swing the doors open. The harbor smells like garbage and decay, and the air is stifling.

The container is empty. Mostly.

“We might have blown it on this one,” Dani grumbles as she walks through and kicks over piles of clothing and makeshift mattresses. She holsters her gun and runs the beam of her flashlight over the debris. 

JT presses his lips together and tries to keep a grip on his optimism. Deep down, he’s worried she’s right. He follows her in, his eyes tracking back and forth. 

It’s all too clear what the container really was. A makeshift home for a thousand-mile trip across the Atlantic. It’s impossible to tell how many people might have been crammed into the small space, but it looks like there were a lot at some point. Too many.

“We need to start interviewing the crew.” Gil is buzzing, phone out. “Find out who was in charge of unloading, who signed the manifests—shit, that’s Port Authority.”

He steps out to answer a call, and JT follows slowly, letting the uniformed officers take lead on documenting their scene. Others are slowly sweeping the boat, clearing shadowed corners and endless rows of corrugated metal. Making sure there won’t be any unpleasant surprises waiting for them.

“Don’t wander off alone,” Gil drops his phone long enough to call out to Malcolm like a warning. Raises an eyebrow like he means business. 

The profiler sighs and shrugs him off, because it’s hard to miss that the only other person standing there is JT. 

“I’m going to help them search,” the kid says stubbornly without looking at him. Like he’s expecting some kind of protest. 

JT doesn’t have the slightest intention of standing in his way. 

He follows wordlessly as Malcolm veers off, making his way up the deck between the looming towers of metal and the railing. If he was up to it, the cop has no doubt Malcolm would do his best to ditch him completely. He takes advantage of the kid’s uneven gait to catch up to him. 

“You don’t have to babysit me,” Malcolm snaps as he rounds on him. It’s devoid of all the aggression and confidence he probably meant to convey, and there’s something there that makes JT reckless. 

“Where did you go?” 

JT isn’t sure why he asks. Why he picks this moment out of all the moments that came before to drop the façade.

From the startled look on Malcolm’s face, the kid is clearly wondering the exact same thing.

JT forces himself to look at him. To keep his eyes from falling away. To plead silently for an answer to the questions that have been haunting him for a decade.

“I was young back then,” Malcolm says. His voice is hollow and rings with sadness.

“So was I,” JT admits quietly. “That doesn’t answer the question.”

“I don’t… I can’t give you one.” A breath stutters out between pale lips. Blue eyes dart nervously around as if there could be someone listening. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

JT feels something in his chest sink. “I don’t want you to follow a script. Shit, kid. After all this time, and now, stuck workin’ together… Wouldn’t it be better if we could be honest?”

Even as the words fall out, the cop knows. He knows he’s spinning his wheels, treading water. Asking for the kind of closure that might never come.

He stares at Malcolm and traces the scar that runs from jaw to cheekbone. He can tell the kid is self-conscious about it, and JT wants to tell him he shouldn't be. That it does nothing to diminish the magnetic beauty the cop still sees every time he looks at him. A light too damn bright for anything physical to dim it.

Malcolm stares stubbornly at his feet, and JT thinks that’s it. A stone wall of will, and he’s useless beating his fists against it. He thinks that right up until Malcolm looks at him, and there’s an agony shining in his eyes that hits JT like a punch to the jaw. 

“What happened,” he hears himself ask. Wondering if that’s an answer he’ll ever get. One he’ll be ready for, if he does.

“I can’t tell you,” Malcolm says, and his voice is shaking.

JT wants to say more. Ask more, push harder. He doesn’t get the chance.

He hears a shout, a flurry of movement. Turns to see Gil fall backwards and scramble for his gun. 

“He went that way!” Dani’s voice. Pitched high with urgency and adrenaline.

JT doesn’t have time to ask because he hears it. A crackling, ripping noise. It tears through his bones, sits in his teeth and vibrates like electricity. Stacks of boxes tilt and crash across the deck. 

“Stop! NYPD!” Malcolm yells, and JT turns to see the profiler rushing towards the end of the shipping container, chasing a dark shadow.

_ “Malcolm!” _ JT is sure his heart jumps into his throat, his veins running cold with the shock of a sudden adrenaline dump. He follows without thinking about it, without a plan.

They don’t make it far. He sees Bright, struggling with a stranger. A flash of shining metal.

“Drop it!” JT roars, and adrenaline takes over completely. His service weapon is in his hand before he can remember drawing it, he’s moving forward at a pace that might be a sprint or might be a crawl. He has a split second to find his opening as Malcolm pushes away, just enough. 

There’s a crack of deafening sound. JT pulls the trigger. The gunshot is muffled and distant to his ears, blood rushing through his veins fast enough to drown it all out. 

He’s sure he missed, almost positive. Malcolm grapples with his assailant, tries to get control of a flailing arm. A gun falls out of the suspect’s hand and skids across the deck.

“Malcolm, get out of there!” JT screams it, desperate to get another shot before he accidentally takes them both out. 

The profiler isn’t listening, or maybe he’s just choosing not to. Always stubborn. Always so sure he can win against impossible odds.

It’s only a split second of hesitation. Malcolm wraps his arms around the suspect at the same moment the man brings his feet up and pushes against the line of boxes.

_ “Bright!” _ JT hears himself scream as Malcolm and the suspect both tip over the edge and plummet into the water below. JT makes it to the railing without knowing how, staring down at the dark waves.

He doesn’t remember making the choice to do it, it just happens. He drops his coat to the deck. Drops his gun, too, which is a stupid move all it’s own.

He remembers thinking that the water is a long, long way down. Pitch black and boiling.

He jumps anyway. 


	3. hiraeth

**.**

**hiraeth**

{he-ry-th} Welsh

 _(n.)_ a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past

**.**

It’s 2010. JT is twenty-two years old, and the lights are dim. Purple and green and flashing. 

The same Title Boxing t-shirt he packed away in his mom’s attic before his deployment sits wrong on him now, tight in the shoulders and baggy in the waist. The desert changed him in more ways than one.

He’s holding a red solo cup that’s not draining fast enough. Wandering aimlessly through crowded hallways lit by strings of colored bulbs, Halloween-style leftovers thrown up in a rush. Trying awkwardly to fake his way back into civilian normalcy, pretending he can rest easy in a dark house full of rich, white kids and flowing alcohol. Pretending he belongs.

Two tours and a bum knee after signing his life away to the Army on a dotted line, JT finds himself here. Trading the distinguished career and lifelong service he’d planned out for his future for an aimless trek through academic boredom. Flailing to figure out what to do with himself because he’s never exactly been a great student, and he doesn’t have the first clue where to go from here. What he’s going to do with his life now. The uncertainty of it all terrifies him, and he’s going through the motions. Faking it until he makes it because it’s all he can do. 

“JT!” A blond kid, unsteady and swaying on his feet, grabs the taller man by the elbow and drags him towards the living room. “Come on dude, you’re missing the action.”

“What action,” JT grumbles half-heartedly. He’s wondering why he’s here. Why he’s trying so desperately to fit back into the normal world that he’s drinking cheap beer from a lukewarm keg in a crowded frat house. 

The kid whose name might be Luke, JT is guessing—not with much confidence—is immune to JT’s protests. Pulling him into the chaos without seeming to notice how awkward it all is, how unnatural. 

“Wanna play doubles?”

“No,” JT gripes. A sticky ping-pong ball is pressed into his hand anyway.

_Fake it til you make it,_ he tells himself again without much enthusiasm. 

JT plays. 

The kid across the table is a little less drunk than his partner, and consequently does most of the heavy lifting. He’s a good shot, too, and that’s really all it takes to light that competitive spark in JT’s chest.

It comes down to a close contest, and the slender kid with bright blue eyes manages to land the last shot. By now, a crowd has gathered, and they erupt into cheers and whoops of laughter as JT raises the cup and downs it in a practiced swig. 

“Well done,” JT offers a grudging congratulations as he meanders around the table, watching the next group reset the cups. 

“You’re not half-bad yourself.” The kid shoots him an easy, tipsy smile, and something in JT’s gut clenches up.

“JT,” he introduces himself without really knowing why.

“Malcolm Whitly,” the kid says with a flash of blue eyes. Damn those eyes.

“You wanna drink?” JT thinks that’s the beer talking. The heat boiling in the pit of his stomach. The combination of an unfamiliar environment and an unfamiliar feeling, the steel resolution he adopted like a promise to himself. To fit in, to be a civilian. To be normal, or at least carry on faking it until it becomes real. 

“You’re buying,” Malcolm jokes. Maybe he’s imagining it, but JT thinks there’s a hint of something there. Something coy and suggestive in the curve of soft lips.

Willing to follow this unexpected adventure as far as it will take him, and more than grateful for the distraction, JT leads the way into the kitchen. It’s too bright compared to the rest of the house, too crowded. He elbows his way up to the alcohol-covered island and fills up two cups, letting Malcolm lead the way out through the french doors onto the deck. He’s immediately concerned by the three or four other couples out here, most of whom are three sheets to the wind and sucking each other’s faces off.

“I don’t think they even know we’re here, honestly.” Malcolm reads his mind with a glance.

“Clearly not,” JT scowls as a girl moans nearby, all but shoving her hands down her partner’s pants. He looks away quickly, feeling unbearably awkward and hoping alcohol will be the key to correcting that. 

He reaches out to hand Malcolm his drink and blinks when the kid bypasses the offer, taking JT’s cup instead.  
  


“Can’t be too careful.” Malcolm smiles, taking a long drink.

It isn’t something JT thinks about much, and he figures maybe he should start. With a shrug, he follows suit and drinks.

For a minute or two, they stand in silence. JT leans his hip against the wooden railing and listens to the raucous laughter and music drifting from inside. It’s early in the semester, the air just hinting at autumn as the temperature dips with the sun. A far cry from the scalding heat and bone-deep terror that became a second home to him overseas. 

Malcolm breaks the silence first. “You’re here on a scholarship?” It comes out casual, but that hint of real curiosity underlying the words gives the kid away. 

JT blinks. “What makes you think that?”

Malcolm looks a little apologetic at that. “No offense, you just don’t… you’re not like most of the guys here.”

“G.I. bill,” JT concedes, wondering what it is about Malcolm that cracked him open so quickly. If it’s the alcohol or the environment or hypnotic eyes looking into him like he matters. It’s unnerving, and if he’s completely honest, it’s new. Unfamiliar, and not in the unpleasant, skin-crawling kind of way like the rest of the campus. It’s strange in a good way. 

“Ah. Military, then?”

“Army.”

Malcolm looks thoughtful, like he isn’t just making small talk. Like he’s paying attention. “What are you studying?”

The rapid-fire questions would bother JT under normal circumstances. Get him bristling with paranoia. That’s not the case tonight.

“Honestly? I don’t have a goddamn clue. I really don’t.” As soon as he says it, he wonders if it’s too much. Too honest, though he doesn’t know if he can blame that entirely on his inebriation. He thinks it has more to do with that direct gaze fixed on his, drawing things out of him he didn’t mean to give away.

Malcolm leans in close, a conspiratorial flicker sparkling in his eyes. “Guess what? Neither does anyone else.”

“So, we’re all just here to drink.” JT sighs through his nose, enjoying his buzz for the first time in ages as he looks around at the crowded deck. Reminds himself that this is normal and there are no threats here. This is what college kids do with their lives. They drink and make friends and throw PDA around like it’s going out of style.

Once he’s talked his own brain off the edge, he turns his attention back to Malcolm. He feels his chest get all tight and funny when he catches sharp eyes watching him again. “What about you?”

“I’m going to work for the FBI.” Malcolm says it with such conviction, such absolute confidence, that JT thinks he actually believes it. “I’m double-majoring. I have an internship lined up if I can keep up my grades.”

“Damn. Don’t forget me when you make it up to that ivory tower, huh?”

Malcolm’s smile does something funny to JT as he looks at him, all honest and open. “I don’t think anyone could forget you.”

That’s enough to shock him almost sober, get him staring into those lit-from-within eyes.

He tries to think of something clever to say, but maybe he’s a little more drunk than he gave himself credit for. Maybe it’s the environment, the alcohol, or the company for the first time in a long time. Whatever combination it is, it’s enough to strip him of his inhibitions almost entirely. 

He leans in and kisses Malcolm.

It was the right move, he figures, because Malcolm kisses him back. Shit, he _really_ kisses him. 

JT loses himself in it, let’s himself sink into soft lips that taste like pale ale and the smell of expensive cologne. He’s even brave enough to wrap a hand in chestnut hair and tip Malcolm’s head back. 

When they break apart, JT’s feeling it. His heart’s beating fast in his chest, and the hand he’s still using to clench his plastic cup is moist from spilled beer.

“See,” Malcolm breathes. His pupils are dark and blown wide in the half-light. “Who could forget a kiss like that?” 

**.**

There’s a heart-dropping moment where JT feels like he might just fall forever, suspended in the oppressive heat, and then the water hits him.

It’s mercilessly cold, colder than it has any right to be considering the summer temperatures, and it’s enough to steal the air right out of his lungs. He feels his mouth open automatically, the shock to his system sending rational thought flying right out of the window. By the time he’s realizing his mistake, his head is breaking the surface again, and he’s spitting out dirty water in choked gasps. 

“Malcolm—” he tries to scream it, but it comes out all wrong. Scared and off balance. “ _Malcolm!_ ” This time, he screams it across the water, the lights of the city reflecting on the surface like fireworks. For a disoriented moment, he can’t figure out which way is up, where the boat is, where Malcolm fell.

He’s panicking and he knows it because if the kid got sucked under water, he has no idea how to find him. He didn’t have a plan beyond the jump, beyond following Malcolm into hell and back with no lifeline because that’s how it’s always been. Jump first, plan later.

There’s a sound close by, a splash of noise and gasping air that has JT kicking, spinning to find the source.

“Hold on,” he gasps, the surge of bay water lapping at his chin, trying to drag him down. He swims, and he’s too slow. Too bogged down by his jeans and his boots and his dress shirt that catches in the water like a parachute.

Malcolm is flailing, disoriented, gagging. JT grabs onto him and pulls him close, clutching him tight. Mindlessly relieved to hold the kid against him, to feel signs of life. 

“You okay?” His voice isn’t as strong as he wishes it was, and his heart is still pounding in his chest, draining all the oxygen and energy out of his system. 

Malcolm doesn’t answer him, but the cop can feel him flailing weakly. Alive. Safe.

“Where’d he go,” he gasps aloud, trying to tread water as he casts his eyes around for their suspect, the man he shot at. Shot and missed. “What happened to him?” 

Malcolm’s eyes are wide and terrified in the darkness, and from his glazed look, JT quickly realizes the kid isn’t going to answer him. 

“Tarmel!” 

Someone is screaming his name from far above, and the cop tries to figure out where it’s coming from. The ship is looming, sheer walls of metal stretching up into the sky. He knows Gil is up there somewhere, a silhouette against the stars he’s too disoriented to make out. 

“Hey!” He screams out, tries to rise out of the water enough to lift his arm and wave frantically. “We’re here!”

“Hold on!” Gil’s voice is far-off and muted because all the cop can really hear is the rush of water. So much water, and it’s still freezing. Tugging at his limbs like icy hands. 

“You’re okay,” JT hears himself say, something primal and instinctive in his brain telling him he needs to keep talking. He isn’t sure if that’s for his own good, or for Bright. Bright, whose struggles and half-hearted kicks are becoming weaker, more lethargic.

“Goddammit, you better not die here, in the fucking Hudson—” JT cuts off as the surge catches them, pulling them under for a heart-stopping moment of terror. They break again quickly, sucking in air like it’s the last time either of them ever will.

JT knows he needs to calm down, needs to find some kind of holding pattern so he doesn’t tire himself out. He can’t tread water indefinitely, and there’s something wrong with Malcolm. The kid isn’t responding anymore, is barely moving. That’s what really does it: scares him more than jumping into the unknown, plunging into dark waters without a plan. The idea that maybe it wasn’t enough. 

Something hits the water nearby with a loud slap, and JT nearly cries when he catches sight of the white life preserver bobbing on the surface. He kicks out towards it, dragging Malcolm with him. Hooks an arm through and pulls the kid in close, feeling weak with sharp relief.

“You’re okay,” he repeats out loud. Over and over again until it loses meaning. He doesn’t even know if it’s true, or if he just desperately needs it to be.

It takes too long—maybe hours, maybe years—for the Coast Guard vessel to reach them. A high-pitched engine humming across the surface of the water. Strong, dry hands reach down and pull them out of the darkness. 

They lay the profiler flat on the deck and haul JT over next, his legs shaking and numb. He holds himself upright by sheer willpower and adrenaline, still trying to process what just happened. Exhausted, reeling. 

JT looks down and catches sight of the bright red stain, blossoming like rose petals across Malcolm’s shoulder, and thinks he might puke right there on the spot. 

“Fuck,” he gasps, propping his hands on his knees and feeling himself shake. 

Someone is offering him a blanket, and he’s as cold as he’s maybe ever been in his life but he still shrugs it off angrily. It’s unspeakably wrong that anybody gives a shit about him right now, not when Malcolm is laying on the deck, bleeding.

“Did I shoot him?” He isn’t sure why he asks, isn’t sure why he has any conception that these men will have the answer to that question. He doesn’t even know who he’s directing the words to, but they rip out of his chest anyway.

“No, of course not,” a medic is telling him, still trying to get him to accept that ugly green blanket. “We need to get you warm.”

“You don’t know that!” A note of hysteria tugs at his voice, and he hears it, recognizes it. Knows that he’s not in his right mind right now. He forces himself to stay standing, because he thinks if he lets his jelly knees crumple, he might never stand up again.

“Bullet wound to the shoulder, it’s a through and through,” one of the medics says, crouching over Bright. It’s too clinical, too unfeeling.

In the floodlights of the boat, Malcolm looks like death warmed over. There’s an alarming blue tinge to his skin, his lips almost white. Shining eyes glimmer through at half-mast, staring unseeingly up into the dark sky. Somehow, that’s worse than anything else. That he’s still conscious, still fighting through the pain. 

That damn scar glows against pale skin, ugly and accusatory. JT might never know where it really came from, but right now he feels like he may as well have put it there himself. 

It’s a reminder that this isn’t the worst the kid’s survived in his short life. A reminder that, of all the things that have hurt Malcolm, this time it really was JT’s fault. 

_I shot him_ , he tells himself hollowly. Tells himself that if he doesn’t go to prison for this, he’s at least getting fired. He’s getting reassigned or worse. He’ll never be able to look the profiler in the eye again. It’s a heart-stopping amalgamation of all his worst fears, coming true in the space of a few minutes.

They speed back to shore. JT holds onto the nearest rail and watches them work on Malcolm, feeling numb. Disconnected.

Gil and Dani are waiting for them on the dock. Gil checks the cop over with a heavy breath of relief, uncaring that he soaks his own jacket when he pulls JT in close for a one-sided hug. 

“We found the gun,” Dani says, holding a plastic evidence bag. She looks pale and shaken. Clinging to protocol and productivity in the face of chaos. 

Everything seems to click into place as JT stares at it, remembering the glint of light on metal. The suspect’s gun. Remembering the sound of it going off right before JT pulled the trigger. 

“It wasn’t me,” he says numbly, staring at the gun. “I didn’t shoot him.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Gil says gently, like he’s talking to a child. 

JT’s knees really do give out, then. He’s unbearably queasy, sick with the weight of it all. The horrific implications, the spiral he fell into at the mere thought of hurting Malcolm. Accidentally or not. He presses his palms flat against the filthy concrete and breathes. 

“You’re in shock,” Dani says, and there’s a gentleness to her tone, to her touch as she drops a hand onto his shoulder. A sympathy he’s never heard from her before.

The cop finds he can’t even speak, sucking in air through his teeth like he’s still in the water, still drowning. Still holding Bright against his chest and feeling the kid grow weaker.

“Fuck,” he coughs out, his chest tight. The sticky, humid air is clogging in his lungs. He can still taste the Hudson River clinging to his gums like poison. 

Dani’s hand vanishes, and he figures she’s sick of seeing him fall apart on the dock and he can’t blame her. He’s wrong. She’s back in a heartbeat, grabbing his arm, pressing a cold water bottle into his palm. 

“Drink,” she commands. 

He does. Whether it’s the temperature of the cool water burning down his throat, or the hydration, or the simplicity of having a meaningful task to focus on, it really does help. 

“He’s gonna be okay?” JT dares to look up, the world spinning less dramatically, his head pounding less.

“He’s tough as nails,” Gil promises. There’s a worried line between his brows, a heavy guilt sitting on his shoulders that JT thinks doesn’t belong to him. 

“I swear to god, I thought I missed—I thought I hit him,” JT is babbling like a lunatic and he can’t stop himself. He’s shaky with adrenaline, weak with relief. He knows what that post-adrenal dump feels like, and he thinks this is different. It’s more, and it’s so much worse.

“You didn’t, alright? We still haven't identified the suspect, or found the body—he’ll wash up. But trust me, I saw the whole thing. You didn’t hit Malcolm, alright? This isn’t on you.” Gil is crouching in front of him, talking in that steady, comforting voice with absolute conviction. 

JT nods and tries to make himself believe it. Adrenaline does funny things to his body, it always has. Whether it catches up to him an hour or a day later, it brings him crashing down. Into dark pits where his mind wanders too far, too deep. 

“You did good, you hear me?” Gil grips his shoulder hard, like he’s comforting himself as much as he is JT with the touch. “You did the right thing.”

“The stupid thing,” Dani mutters from somewhere behind his shoulder, masking her own nerves with frustration. It’s familiar enough to ground him, to remind him that the world didn’t stop spinning after all. That after this, life goes on.

“Well, we all do stupid things once in a while, don’t we?” Gil cracks a smile, a swing at re-establishing normalcy. 

JT nods hard and pulls one knee up. It takes more effort than it should to clamber to his feet, and Gil helps him without being asked.

The cop turns to the flashing lights behind him, tired eyes traveling over the fleet of cars and emergency vehicles. He watches Malcolm disappear into an ambulance, red and blue lights lighting up the docks like fireworks. 


	4. tacenda

**.**

**tacenda**

{ta-chen-da} Latin

_ (n.) _ things better left unsaid; matters to be passed over in silence

**.**

It’s autumn in New York and the night sky explodes into brilliant color overhead. Showers of green and yellow sparks shimmer downwards and flicker out, sulfur filling the air as thousands of drunk college students cheer. 

They’re at the tail end of a football game, and JT couldn’t begin to say who lost and who won because he’s been lost in warm arms and laughing eyes for most of it. 

Malcolm has a way of making him lose his inhibitions, and it’s not a feeling he can blame on the alcohol anymore. Not when he’s been riding this high for three months. Not when Malcolm rolls over and wakes him up every morning with a kiss, and he still gets butterflies. 

The kid is standing in front of him, their seats abandoned so they can get a better view, his back pressed against JT’s chest. The bigger man has his arms draped over thin shoulders and his chin resting atop soft, chestnut hair that smells like acceptance. Like that spark of hope, the one that whispers that he might be able to squeeze a drop or two of meaning out of his life, has finally ignited into a full-blown inferno. 

He doesn’t much care for fireworks on a good day, but they enrapture Malcolm. Seeing the kid’s face light up with every explosion makes it all worth it. 

“You okay,” Malcolm asks him when he seems to sense the bigger man staring. 

JT tightens his arms, beer sloshing dangerously. “Never better,” he mumbles, and he means it.

Malcolm turns around in his arms, hiding his face in JT’s broad chest. Sighing into him like he could fall asleep there, and it’s a shared sentiment. 

Three months. That’s how long it took for them to fall into each other like they’ve always been this way. Happier, lighter, content. The restless, anxious pit in JT’s chest has filled for the first time since he made it back from Afghanistan. He feels like he’s found something right, and the way Malcolm accepts him makes him feel normal again. Whole. 

It started small. Drunken sex and pillow talk. Little texts through the day that turned into midnight conversations under the stars in that same empty stadium. 

JT getting his first three-day academic suspension when he finally got his hands on a shithead in Malcolm’s law class who was getting a little too handsy. Malcolm somehow forgiving him for that explosion of violence. Looking past all of it. 

And the kid didn’t make it easy at times, but maybe it’s always been JT’s curse for loving a challenge. The battle to bring walls down and remind Malcolm that, whether he believes it or not, he was worth it. Always worth it.

There’s a lot there. A lot JT still doesn’t know much about. An estranged father and a mother a little too fond of liquor to maintain healthy relationships. Darker things, hinted at, lying silent just beneath the surface. Sleeping monsters. Walls and barriers like armor. 

JT doesn’t mind reminding Malcolm that he’s got his own share of demons knocking at the walls. Desperate for an outlet. 

They’re good for each other, he thinks. Maybe perfect. 

“You’re thinking too loud.” Malcolm grins up at him. He hasn’t had as much to drink as JT has, and it’s probably a good thing. The last thing JT needs after his suspension is getting in trouble again for PDA at a crowded football game. 

“Little hypocritical, don’t you think? Besides, I was thinking about you.” 

“Shhh, wait until we get back to the dorms, at least.” That devilish glint in blue eyes never fails to turn JT’s whole world wrong-side up. He’s not immune to it now, either. 

Lacking a proper comeback, JT ruffles his hair, loving the way Malcolm grimaces as his perfectly-gelled coif turns into a mess. 

“You’re obnoxious,” Malcolm sighs as he smooths his hair back, and it sounds like he believes anything but.

“Yeah, I am. But don’t forget you love me,” JT smiles, half-drunk into blue eyes.

Malcolm laughs aloud and kisses him.

**.**

It’s eight in the morning and already hotter than hell in New York. Malcolm is wearing a sling under his suit jacket. JT stares at it like he’s never seen one before, and he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it at first.

“I’m fine,” Malcolm tells him tiredly. “You can stop looking at me like that.”

“Sorry.” It’s a knee-jerk reaction, to apologize like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Then, awkwardly he adds, “Glad you’re back on your feet.”

Malcolm offers up a self-deprecating smile, dry and devoid of humor. “I got lucky.”

JT thinks that luck is the last thing Malcolm has to contend with, but he’s already made enough of a fool of himself for one day so he keeps his mouth shut.

_ Don’t forget you love me. _

Words that seemed so natural ten years ago ring in his ears like a bad dream as JT slumps into his seat, feeling sore for reasons he can’t explain. 

Dani doesn’t smile often—at least, a smile that’s not tinged with sarcasm or condescension or worse—but she does today. When she walks in and spots Bright, looking a little worse for wear but alive and whole. Slides her eyes over to JT, and her whole face splits like the sun. 

“Looks like you two survived the weekend,” she jabs to cover up her moment of softness.

“Against all odds,” JT smirks back. 

“Good. I was just getting used to you.”

Gil isn’t quite as forgiving when he swoops in, leveling a glare at the profiler that would make a lesser man quiver in his boots. 

“What happened to that week off I ordered?” Gil scowls, making no effort to hide his disapproval. 

“The hospital released me, so I’m here,” Malcolm explains unconvincingly. “Don’t worry, they’ve got me on the good stuff.”

Gil scoffs like he doesn’t believe that for a moment, and JT would bet money that’s not the end of the conversation. 

**.**

The body washes up two days later. 

“Hell of a shot,” Gil whistles under his breath as the medical examiner pulls the sheet back. Stares down at the corpse on a sheet metal slab.

JT is inclined to agree, but he’ll never say it out loud. He’s keeping his mouth shut, as much to try and salvage some of his tattered pride after his breakdown as it is a futile effort to block out the overwhelming stench of formaldehyde. 

“Blood loss probably got him before the water did,” Dani chimes in dispassionately. The smell doesn’t seem to bother her, somehow. “Real shame.” 

JT isn’t sure why, but he doesn’t feel guilty. Not in the slightest. Maybe he should feel…  _ something. _ He’s responsible for taking a human life, which isn’t a burden he should bear lightly. He  _ doesn’t  _ take it lightly. But somehow, all he can think about is the color of blood seeping through water-logged fabric, and that goes a long way towards helping him stay impassive. 

It makes him think that if any sort of justice really exists in the world, maybe this is it. Cold bodies on cold steel. 

The body in question is a middle-aged white man, the lines of his face belying his age, corded muscles speaking to a lifetime of hard labor. The lines of stitches creep up his chest from beneath the sheet, fanning out under his collarbone in a T-pattern. The neatly stitched post-autopsy edges, almost cartoonish in their simplicity. 

“Guess we’re onto something after all,” Gil muses aloud. He has one hand on his hip and the other rubbing through his beard, over and over like a nervous tic.

Malcolm was standing across the room, asking questions of one of the techs, and he draws closer as he catches the tail end of their conversation. 

“Any ID?” There’s a tension to his voice that JT certainly can’t blame him for. All told, he’s holding it together pretty well for a guy looking down at the body of the man who tried to kill him. Nearly succeeded, if they’re in the business of brutal honesty. 

“We got a crew list off the ship, so we can cross-check it,” Gil sighs. “Nothing positive yet.” 

The lieutenant levels a concerned look at the profiler that JT doesn’t miss. The way Malcolm is looking down at the body is disturbing in more ways than one. 

“Why don’t you take a break, kid?”

“I’m fine,” Malcolm snaps. If his voice didn’t sound so tired, so worn-down and threadbare, it might almost have been hostile. 

Gil purses his lips together and tilts his head in a way that suggests he doesn’t believe that poor lie for a second. 

JT tries to look at Malcolm in a way that comes off as a glance more than stare. The kid’s jaw is tightly clenched. He’s vibrating nerves, and the residual pain from the bullethole in his shoulder he’s refusing to acknowledge probably doesn’t help much. 

Somehow, nobody has the spine to confront him about it. 

“What next?” Dani asks, clearly over her observations.

“Circle back to the precinct,” Gil shrugs like he’s as clueless as the rest of them. “We’ll make a battle plan.”

None of them need more encouragement than that to get the hell out of the morgue. It’s not the kind of place where most people enjoy spending time, even if Malcolm seems frozen. Standing there, looking down at their deceased suspect with an unreadable look in his eyes.

JT leaves him to it, thinking he needs to give the kid some privacy before he really starts coming off like a creep. He abandons that plan when the door creaks behind him, and he knows who it is without looking back. 

“Detective Tarmel,” Malcolm’s voice is quiet. Like maybe he was hoping JT wouldn’t hear him.

Little does the kid know, every nerve and atom in JT’s body is still tuned into Malcolm’s heartbeat like a heat-seeking missile. Focused enough that the formal title hurts him in ways he doesn’t want to admit. 

The cop turns in the hallway, waits for the techs to file past him so Malcolm can catch up. Limping. Not hiding it as well as he thinks he is. 

“You saved my life, I hear.” It’s quiet, almost defeated. A note of breathless insecurity JT hates the sound of.

“That’s a bit of a stretch,” he shrugs, keeping his eyes on the wall because the last thing he wants to do is stare. Or maybe that’s all he wants to do.

“At least you’re a strong swimmer.”

JT chuckles, lets his eyes dart over for just a moment. “Let’s just say I was highly motivated.”

Malcolm laughs at that, too, a short, surprised sound. Like he isn’t used to laughing anymore. 

It’s a shame, JT thinks. Malcolm used to laugh all the time. Bleeding mirth and energy into every room he set foot in. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he adds, hoping to dispel the tension between them. To make it clear that Malcolm doesn’t need to say more.

From the look on his face, it’s pretty clear the kid  _ is _ worried about it. He looks impossibly torn, and after all this time, it’s strange to realize that the profiler never figured out his poker face.

“I owe you an apology,” Malcolm says it slowly, like he’s trying out the words for the first time.

JT stares at him, trying to figure out if he heard that right. “Not really,” he feels the need to say.

“I wasn’t very... “ Malcolm pauses for real this time, staring at the ground with that heavy frown lining his face. “I should have given you a chance…. That is, I should explain—”

“No, I was wrong.” JT cuts in, because watching Malcolm struggle like this is somehow worse than the questions, the uncertainty. “You don’t owe me an apology, you don’t owe me anything.”

Malcolm visibly flinches. 

JT tries to figure out what the hell he said wrong, replaying the short conversation in his mind. “I mean, you don’t have to talk to me. I’m not trying to make this weird, we can work together—”

“I shouldn’t have disappeared like that,” Malcolm blurts out.

JT is shocked into silence. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Malcolm isn’t talking about the present anymore.

“I know,” the kid plunges ahead, like he might lose his nerve if he stops for breath. “I know, and I’ve thought about it for years. Regretted it.”

“What are you saying,” the cop rasps, his throat tight.

“I’m saying—there’s a lot that you don’t know.”

“You feel like helping me out on that, or…?”

“Honestly? No.”

JT feels his shoulders slump. Feels the weight of it all settle onto his back. “Fair enough,” he breathes. 

“Would you let me explain, if I tried?”

JT thinks about that. Wonders if there’s really anything either of them could say at this point that could undo it all. “I would,” he says at last. “If nothing else, maybe I could sleep a little better at night knowing where I went wrong.”

Malcolm goes pale. “You didn’t. You never did. I swear, if you believe anything I say, just… believe  _ that.” _

“Okay,” he breathes. Nods his head and squares up his shoulders. “Like I said, kid, it’s been a long time, and you don’t gotta come up with an explanation, or an excuse or anything else. But if you feel like enlightening me, I ain’t gonna lie... that would help me out, more’n you know.” 

Malcolm opens his mouth to answer, like he might just spill his guts right there on the spot. JT’s chest goes tight.

It’s not meant to be. A door creaks open, and the profiler jumps, looking over his shoulder and dropping his eyes again as a heavy man in a lab coat shuffles past. 

“I get out of class at six tomorrow,” the kid says, and it sounds like an apology. “We can talk… if you want.”

The cop nods, his throat all closed up and his skin feeling cold. He’s nervous for reasons he can’t articulate, his stomach tied up in knots. He doesn’t have the energy, or maybe the courage, to say anything else. 

He watches Malcolm leave, and thinks he’ll never quite get used to that. 

**.**

  
  


It’s a quarter to six the next day when JT finds himself wandering through the halls of Columbia University, feeling out of place amidst the youthful faces and busy chatter. He stops a friendly looking student to ask her where Professor Bright’s classroom is, not holding out much hope she’ll know the answer, and her face lights up. She points him down the hall and scurries away before he can think to ask her more. 

Summer classes don’t carry the same headcount as the regular ones, so there are more than a few empty seats in the massive, amphitheater-style room. JT slips in and stands at the back, hesitant to interrupt. Tries to take it all in. Malcolm’s new life, the one he built for himself. 

Feeling nosy, JT glances over at the nearest student. Sees  _ Forensic Pathology 202 _ scribbled at the top of his notes. He wonders absently how long the kid’s been teaching. It suits him. 

Malcolm hasn’t spotted him yet. The younger man is pacing in front of a blackboard, filled to the edges with scribbled text in white chalk. He’s animated and full of energy, sling failing to slow him down in the slightest. He’s all authority and confidence, passion and brilliance. 

For a moment, JT thinks he sees the old Malcolm. The one he used to know, who went by  _ Whitly  _ and didn’t let anyone stand in his way. 

Dreaming of the past and all the ways it overlaps in the present, he listens quietly as Malcolm finishes up, talking about a case from the 70’s. He gives his students a deadline a week out and dismisses the class. 

Malcolm stops in his tracks when he catches sight of the cop, and JT doesn’t know quite what to do so he just offers a nod. He stands to the side as the students file past him, chattering amongst themselves. Watches as Malcolm limps to his desk, shuffling his notes away into orderly little piles and adjusting them into perfect right angles. An old habit that never left him, apparently. 

Eventually, the profiler picks up a silver-headed cane from his rolling chair and stuffs his phone into his pocket. Heads for the stairs with his head down. 

“Some of my students are circulating this theory—” Malcolm bites his lip as he pulls himself up the stairs. It takes everything JT has in him not to reach out, offer to help him. Of all people, he knows the value of holding your pride together however you can.

“They think I’m in some sort of fight club,” Malcolm goes on when he catches his breath. “I suppose I’ve never bothered to correct them.”

“You know you ain’t supposed to talk about fight club.” JT tips his head.

“Probably explains why I’m always getting my ass beat.”

The cop feels an unfamiliar smile tugging at his lips, and he fights it down. He’s feeling a little too wound up for real levity.

Malcolm is looking at the ground again, like he’s so used to stewing in his own self-consciousness that he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it anymore. He grips the handle of his cane, and his eyes dart up for a millisecond.

“I know this makes me look like some kind of invalid, or maybe a ninety-year-old geriatric, but… it’s been a long week.”

“It’s kinda badass, actually.” JT paces with him as they take the stairs up. “Makes you wonder if there’s a sword in there.”

His heart flips when he catches Malcolm’s half-smile. The past blurs in again, leaving the edges fuzzy and imperceptible. 

They don’t make it very far past the main entrance.

“Malcolm!” 

The voice carries from the curb, the circle drive past the long entryway. JT sees a slender woman in an expensive-looking dress headed their way, and he’s maybe not the best at reading body language but he thinks he knows  _ pissed _ when he sees it. She’s wearing bright red lipstick, and her hair shines auburn in the sunlight as she stalks towards them.

“Oh, god,” the profiler says under his breath, pulling up short in his tracks. He braces his shoulders like he’s getting ready for a fight. He throws a quick look towards the cop, opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but he doesn’t get the chance.    
  
“There you are!” The woman gushes as she approaches, her heels clicking loudly on the pavement. “You’re going to give me grey hair, is that what you want? Hm? You think I don’t already spend enough money at the salon?”

“Mother,” Malcolm says with infinite patience, reaching out to take her elbow like he wants to guide her away. 

She yanks her arm away from him with a huff of frustration, a Gucci handbag swinging wildly on her wrist. “Malcolm,” she scolds, tilting her head. “Don’t  _ ‘mother’ _ me. You haven’t been answering your phone for hours!”

JT blinks, thrown for a loop by this new development. He’s never met Malcolm’s mother, or anyone in his family for that matter, but he certainly remembers hearing stories. Remembers thinking that he understood the kid’s reluctance to introduce anyone to the gale-force storm that is Jessica Whitly. Now, it’s clear to see exactly why.

“I’ve been in class, you know that.” It’s a half-hearted defense like reciting old lines, like Malcolm knows logic won’t serve him here but he needs to try to go through the steps anyway. 

“You’re the professor! You can’t spare time for a text?”

“No,  _ because  _ I’m the professor, and I need to set a good example.”

“Like those students aren’t playing on their phones under their desks—”

“Mother!” Malcolm’s patience is wearing thin. “I get it, alright? I’m sorry I worried you. Now, did you need something, because I was actually right in the middle—”

“It’s just amazing to me that after everything I’ve gone through in my life for you and your sister, neither of you can extend the simple courtesy of returning a phone call, honestly.” Jessica is steamrolling her son, the same manic energy shining in her eyes that JT is used to seeing in Malcolm’s.

The cop watches the little muscle in Malcolm’s jaw work dangerously, his fingers clenching and unclenching on the handle of the cane he’s holding close to his side. He drops his voice, like he’s trying not to embarrass her, though it’s clearly not a sentiment she shares.

“You’re off your meds again, aren’t you? Mother, we talked about this.”

Jessica is still going strong, like she hasn’t heard a word coming out of her son’s mouth. “You worry me half to death, get yourself shot, and I always told you this freelancing business wasn’t healthy for you! And then you stop answering your phone, while I’m just sick with worry about you—”

“ _ Mother _ .”

The profiler pastes on the fakest-looking smile JT has ever seen and extends a hand toward the cop. 

“If you’d give me a moment, this is Detective Tarmel. He works with Gil?”

Jessica stares at JT like she’s seeing him, noticing that he’s standing right there, for the first time. 

“It’s a pleasure, Detective,” she says with a terse smile and a condescending dip of her head. Like JT’s presence is nothing more than an inconvenience to her and she’s already grown tired of him. 

“Likewise,” JT mumbles for civility’s sake, seriously considering his options. Wondering if he should back off for a few minutes and leave Malcolm to settle his family drama. Knowing that the kid has to be feeling pretty mortified right about now and hesitant to make it any worse.

He takes one look at the kid and realizes he can’t abandon him. Not when he’s so clearly humiliated by the entire interaction. 

“We’re going to dinner,” Jessica announces to Malcolm. “I brought the car; I won’t hear any excuses.”

“So you’re taking hostages, now?” The profiler jokes weakly, his head drooping in defeat. 

“This is all a joke to you, isn’t it? I’m trying to keep this family together, and you’re making jokes. Just like your father.”

The profiler takes a sharp breath at that, shoulders going rigid. He doesn’t answer, and he probably wasn’t meant to. 

“I have reservations at that little place downtown, I forget the name—it’s expensive.”

“I’ll have to meet you there. I’m busy.” 

It’s clear that it takes a lot out of the kid to stand up to his mother, and JT feels more out of place than ever. Like he shouldn’t be there. Shouldn’t be standing within arm’s reach while Jessica unleashes all of her frustration on Malcolm. 

“You need me to go?” He leans closer to the kid, thinking he needs to at least offer before this gets any more uncomfortable for anyone. 

“No,” Malcolm answers quickly, sounding a little panicked. “No, we’re done here.”

Jessica makes an indignant little noise of protest, and it looks like she’s about to go off again. 

“I’ll be there at eight,” Malcolm says to her firmly. “You can’t ambush me like this at work, Mother. We’ve talked about this.”

She looks pissed as hell, but Jessica snaps her mouth shut and shoots a withering glare at JT that makes him feel like an ant under a magnifying glass. 

“Eight o’clock,” she says imperiously instead of arguing. “Don’t be late.”

The profiler nods wearily, accepting her quick hug and a kiss that leaves lipstick on his cheek. He wipes it off with a grimace as he watches her stride back to the waiting car like she owns the whole city. 

“Let’s go before she changes her mind,” the profiler mutters, still looking unbearably stressed and uncomfortable. “I’m so sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the cop says like a knee-jerk reaction. 

“She can be a lot to deal with.”

JT thinks that’s probably an understatement, but he keeps his mouth shut. 

They leave the campus and walk down to the river. Their progress is slow, but JT finds he doesn’t mind. A lazy breeze is moving through the trees, and it helps dispel the oppressive heat as the sun starts a slow dip towards the horizon. He doesn’t hate this, he thinks. Ambling along slowly beside Malcolm. There’s a little less tension between them, and a weary, bone-deep sadness has settled in its place. 

“Sorry about my mother,” Malcolm mutters, repeating the apology between labored breaths that betray how hard it still is for him to walk. He holds his arm stiff against his chest and takes every step carefully, like he isn’t sure his legs will hold him. 

“She does this sometimes. Has these moments of clarity, where she thinks she doesn’t need her medication anymore, so she just… stops. Cold turkey. And she’ll have a few crazy weeks before she comes to her senses and starts the whole thing all over again.”

JT listens, thinking he’s learning more about the kid’s family now, here at the tail end of a decade apart, than he ever did back in college. He doesn’t know what to say, what he’s here for, so he doesn’t try. Lets Malcolm move at his own pace. 

“She projects, you know. Acts like it’s me, or Ainsley, or my father. They haven’t been married for a long time, but when she’s like this, it’s almost like she forgets.” It’s clear the profiler is nervous enough to try to fill the silence, so he does. Rambling, like he needs to explain his life to JT.

The cop doesn’t have the heart to tell him he doesn’t really have to explain anything. He thinks he sounds nervous, and wonders why. He hopes whatever the reason, it isn’t  _ him. _ Hopes that coming here tonight, setting themselves up for what is bound to be a difficult conversation, isn’t hurting Malcolm more than helping him.

It’s a longer walk than it should have been at their snail’s pace, but eventually they reach the wide walk that runs parallel to the river, sparkling under the sun. The water isn’t nearly as dark and ominous as it looked a week ago. 

Malcolm heaves out a sigh, and reaches out to the railing for support. Looks like he’s still bracing himself for a fight.

And JT  _ still  _ doesn’t say anything, because he’s worried that whatever comes out of his mouth might break the spell. He might unintentionally seal up the lips that are suddenly, somehow, so willing to speak. To keep pouring out words and information and little fleeting insights into a life he never really knew all that well after all. 

He just watches the choppy water, the birds swooping down across it with little cries that echo across the rocky shore. It’s almost peaceful. 

“You were the first really good person I ever met.”

The cop stares, because he can’t help himself. It’s not what JT expected him to say. Not even close. 

Malcolm is staring across the water, too, his eyes glowing as the waves reflect in his eyes.

“Maybe you just didn’t know me that well,” JT tries for a joke. It falls flat.

“Maybe not. But even in that short time, it felt like I did.”

The cop can’t begin to argue that. Over the years, he’s looked back and told himself their connection, brief and intense, was born of youth and optimism. Falling into each other too deep, too quickly for anything substantial to be born of it.

Now, he’s not so sure. Because a meaningless fling ten years old shouldn’t hit him like this. Shouldn’t be able to wake something up in the pit of his stomach and remind him what breathing— fully, deeply—feels like.

“It was real, wasn’t it?” His voice is tugged away on the harbor wind, and he didn’t mean for it to sound like that. Wistful, full of memory and meaning.

“It was for me.” 

Malcolm is looking at him when JT turns, and he holds those eyes as long as Malcolm will let him. Because he doesn’t do that anymore. Doesn’t make eye contact like he has the world in front of him and nothing to hide.

The kid is hiding now, shutting his eyes away behind the thick, dark lashes that used to enchant JT like a spell. Maybe they still do.

“I’m sorry for leaving.” A confession and an apology, all rolled into a pained breath.

“Will you tell me why you did?”

Malcolm shakes his head, less a response to JT’s words and more an expression of self-loathing, disappointment, and lost confidence.

“It’s not what you think. It wasn’t you.”

The cop hears himself let out a sharp breath. He wonders why it took him this long to hit that nail on the head. The terror and doubt that somehow, he managed to push away something he held so dear. Someone he cared about.

“I told you before, you ain’t gotta explain. I guess… I just need to know. That it wasn’t me, wasn’t something I did. Tell me I wasn’t the one who hurt you.”

It hurts to say, like he’s been screaming for days and his throat is raw and bleeding. Like these might be the last words he ever says.

“A lot of people have hurt me,” Malcolm struggles to bring his head up, to look at the cop dead-on. “You were never one of them.”

Past all the hedging uncertainty and evasiveness, JT thinks he actually believes him.

“That’s all you need to say,” he breathes, feeling some of the tension in his shoulders relax. “Honestly. I know you been through a lot over the last couple years, I mean… I ain’t blind. But that’s not what I see when I look at you.”

Maybe it’s the shock of the words, or the warm air or the frozen moment. But for the first time, Malcolm doesn’t look away from him. 

“I still see—” JT is appalled when his voice cracks, and he swallows hard. “That shit-eating kid who whooped me at beer pong. The one that all but moved into my apartment and never really left. Shit, you made me try Thai food—”

The cop is the first to look away this time, warring with the surge of emotion that wants to burst out of his chest. “I hated it, you know.”

Malcolm lets out a laugh that doesn’t sound like a laugh at all. It’s full of pain. “Yeah, I know.”

“You’re still  _ you _ , is what I’m sayin’. You might not see that, but I do. I’m lookin’ right at you, and I see it.”

Malcolm shakes his head, and there’s a thick sheen of emotion hiding his eyes like tears. “That’s not true. You have no idea what I’ve become.”

JT battles down the irrational urge to cry, to throw his hands in the air and let it all come rushing out of him. He wants to shake the kid back to his senses. Hold up a mirror that doesn’t show scars or damage or any of the terrible things he knows Malcolm believes about himself now. If there’s a way to show Malcolm what he sees, the cop doesn’t know how to find it.

Taking a breath to steady himself that doesn’t work in the slightest, JT props his hands on his hips, shakes his head tiredly. 

“You said you’d explain… but you can’t, can you?”

Blue eyes fall away. Malcolm’s shamed silence says it all.

“Maybe I’m a fool for sayin’ this, but I don’t care.” JT sucks on his lip and stares at Malcolm, stares at the ridge of that horrific scar. “Took me ten years to piece it together, but better late than never.”

From the rigid set of Malcolm’s shoulders, the way he’s holding himself like he’s waiting to get hit… JT knows he’s right.

“You keep all the secrets you want. And I ain’t gonna pry, not anymore. But if you ever feel like gettin’ some of that weight off your chest… I guess I’m gonna be around for a while. You don’t have to do it all alone, you know.”

Malcolm stares at the railing, leaning hard on his cane. The collar of his dress shirt is flapping idly in the wind, and JT thinks about reaching out and smoothing it back down. Thinks a lifetime ago, he would have done it, too. Followed it up with a long kiss that left them both laughing. 

A lifetime ago, he would have done a lot of things. It hurts to think about what he lost, and how it’s all standing across from him now, within arm’s reach. It hurts to think that he still doesn’t understand  _ why. _

“This would all be so much easier if you would just hate me,” Malcolm mutters.

For once, JT thinks he agrees completely.


	5. saudade

**.**

**saudade**

{sou-däd-j} Portuguese 

(n.) a nostalgic longing to be near again to something or someone that is distant, or that has been loved and then lost; “the love that remains”

**.**

It’s Friday night and Friday nights are beer nights, Dani informs him without preamble when they get off work late that week. 

She drags him out to a hole-in-the-wall on the southside, telling him that Gil and Malcolm will be along soon so they should pre-game. 

He’s a little surprised at her sudden willingness to talk to him—she hasn’t exactly been heading up the welcome wagon—but doesn’t question it. Doesn’t even resist when she tells him they’re taking shots. He just does his best to keep up.

It’s easier said than done. Six shots turn into half-an-hour of bitching, primarily from Dani. Primarily about Eve. 

“It’s like she expects us to just drop everything on our plates at a moment’s notice. DA gets their panties all up in a bunch and suddenly it’s  _ our _ problem. Christ, she’s so fucking annoying.”

“Why don't you just ask her out and get it over with,” JT huffs, staring morsely at his empty beer. It’s mostly a joke with a tinge of serious meaning behind it, because he might not be the sharpest tool in the box but he thinks he’d be an idiot to miss the tension between the two women. 

Dani glares at him. “I’m not gay.”

JT shrugs one shoulder, rolling off her defensive animosity. “I am.”

Dani pauses, casting him a side-eyed look like she thinks he might be making fun of her. She breathes out, takes a drink. “Well, shit. We can’t have a whole team of gays. We’ll be the poster child for affirmative action.”

“Gil’s straight. Obviously.”

“Malcolm, though. And then you, and me.” She seems startled to hear herself say it. She scowls at the cop, amending, “I’m bi, by the way. Not that it’s any of your fucking business.”

JT tries not to smile. “I didn’t ask.”

“Well it’s better to clear it up. Better than all the stupid rumors. I’m sick of the damn rumors.”

JT can’t blame her. “Eve’s pretty,” he deflects. “Like… gorgeous.”

“I’ll kill you,” Dani slaps her palm down on the table and stands, extricating herself from the wooden bench to go for more drinks.

JT smirks to himself, feeling like there might be a chance for him here after all. If he can get Dani of all people to open up, he figures he can get anyone to do it. She’s not exactly the mystery he thought she was when they first met.

When Dani returns, she brings him another Corona without asking. It’s a peace offering if he’s ever seen one.

Gil and Malcolm arrive shortly after, and from the distracted way they step inside and pause, it’s clear they’ve been deep in conversation.

Catching sight of Malcolm is almost enough to sober JT right up. He straightens in his seat, clearing his throat and straightening the edges of his shirt. He hasn’t talked to the kid since their last ill-fated conversation, and he isn’t sure if he’s supposed to. If he’s meant to carry on like it never happened, or keep his distance or just play dumb. 

Dani gives him a dirty look and rolls her eyes, hard. “Hypocrite,” she mutters against her glass.

JT opens his mouth to fire back, but Gil and Malcolm are making their way up to the table. 

Malcolm looks... awful. His face is pale and drawn, like he’s in pain and hiding it poorly. From an outside perspective, it looks like he went a couple rounds with a wood chipper and came out on the losing end. 

Seeing the kid like this, looking so beat-up and worn-down, still fucks with JT’s head in ways he can’t justify. Still kicks that protective instinct in his chest into high gear like he has any right at all to feel this way.

“About time,” Dani greets them as only Dani could. “You missed shots.”

Gil raises his eyebrows at her. “It’s eight o’clock.”

“And? Time’s a wasting.”

Malcolm slides into his seat gingerly, which JT doesn’t notice because of course he’s definitely  _ not _ looking at him. He doesn’t notice the fresh sling either, strapped to his chest to keep his arm from moving that indicates a visit back to the hospital. A thousand little details that are absolutely, positively, none of his damn business. 

“You missed a pretty good speech about why we hate the DA’s office too,” JT can’t resist volunteering as Gil sits down across from him. 

“Certain people, mostly.” Dani huffs, throwing an arm over the back of her chair. Her curls are falling into her eyes, and maybe she’s finally feeling the alcohol after all, because she’s slow to push them back. 

“Don’t start this again,” Gil groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Eve is… passionate about her job.”

“You mispronounced  _ obnoxious _ .”

“We’re lucky to have her on board, you know. She does a lot of the leg work for us on cases like this.”

“Tries to do our jobs for us, you mean. For fuck’s sake, we can’t even breathe around this case without her popping up to chime in.”

“So,” Malcolm surprises them all when he speaks. “You’re taking her out for coffee?” 

JT laughs, a loud sound that bursts out of his chest without permission. Even Dani isn’t immune to Malcolm’s charms, because her indignation quickly turns into laughter too. 

“Fuck all of you,” she sighs, and drains her beer.

**.**

JT makes it home late, and he’s never been happier he chose to take a cab. He stumbles into his apartment and it takes him a few tries to get the lights on. 

He’s tipping over that dangerous edge, from the pleasant side of buzzed to the crashing depression that inevitably comes after. He’s been living alone for as long as he can remember. Since college, but he’s trying not to think about that. This is his life now. Half-heartedly kicking up brief relationships that never go anywhere, losing himself in a few disappointing flings. Making occasional trips down to his mom’s place, but besides that he’s just… alone.

He wishes he’d managed to fill the void somehow. Found something heavy and meaningful to slot into that massive hole in his chest Malcolm left behind ten years ago. God knows he could use a way to get over the kid besides day drinking and work. 

Ten fucking years. And he’s right back to falling into bed alone, one arm reaching drunkenly for the empty space beside him that used to be warm and soft and ready to whisper  _ welcome back _ into his ear. 

JT clutches a pillow to his chest and tries to think about something else. Anything else. The harder he tries, the worse it is. The harder his brain veers sharply back to lightning blue eyes and tired smiles. 

He isn’t sure what’s wrong with him. Why he left Malcolm an open door when he knows the kid is never going to walk through it. Why he put himself on hold for over a decade for someone who didn’t care enough to say goodbye when he walked out.

“Stupid,” he groans to himself, pressing his face into his pillow. “You’re so fucking stupid.” 

_ You were the first good person I ever met. _

He hears Malcolm’s voice in his head and hollowly, he wonders if he meant it. If the kid really looked at him and saw  _ good _ instead of  _ fucked up _ and broken and violent and lonely. And if he did… why it wasn’t enough to make him want to stay. 

**.**

  
  


It’s February and the ground is thick with fresh snow when JT lands himself his second suspension of his college career.

It’s all so cliche, like a bad lifetime movie. Malcolm dragged him out to a nice bar, a solid week after Valentine’s Day. Choosing to celebrate a week late to avoid unwelcome attention, doing their best to play it cool. 

It’s not doing either of them much good; anyone who bothered to look at them could see it. Standing a little too close. Staring a little too long. A little too much casual physical contact for platonic friendship. 

Malcolm doesn't seem to care as much, but he knows it bothers JT sometimes so he’s respectful of that. Understanding and accepting in so many ways JT knows he probably doesn’t deserve.

The bar isn’t nice enough that they’re left in peace.

At first he ignores the leers and laughter, the comments bubbling just outside the peripheral of hearing. But it sets him on edge, leaves him grinding his teeth. Gripping his fork a little too hard as he pushes the food around on his plate. 

Malcolm’s foot presses against his own under the table, a silent token of solidarity. 

He meets the kid’s eyes and sighs through his nose. “It’s fine,” he lies.

Malcolm tilts his head at him in sympathy. 

“We can go,” the kid offers quietly. “There’s a thousand other bars, you know.”

“Fuck them,” JT stabs into his ravioli with a little more force than strictly necessary. “We ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Malcolm’s eyes sparkle, all mischief and affection. 

The group of students that’s been mocking them from the bar all night seems like they’re gearing up to leave, drunk and loud and all the worst parts of college-age ignorance. JT tenses up as they head their way, because it’s the long way to the door and he’s too paranoid to think there won’t be some parting jabs. 

He’s right. They crowd past the table, jostling each other, and one of the students almost knocks Malcolm out of his chair. That’s all it takes for JT’s tenuous grip on his self-control to snap. He pushes his chair back and stands, glaring.

“Whoa, it was an accident,” the kid laughs, holding up both hands condescendingly. “Calm down buddy.”

“Why don’t you go cause accidents somewhere else,” JT growls, and he makes an effort to unclench his fists. He can feel his heart pounding in his chest and he’s angry. Senselessly, mindlessly angry, because they should be able to  _ have  _ this. A peaceful night together, minding their own business. 

The students laugh. Emboldened by their numbers, feeling invincible and intoxicated. 

“Fags don’t belong here anyway,” the larger student says it too loudly. Brave from his spot in the back of the group. 

Every eye in the place is on them after that, every breath collectively held. 

Malcolm isn’t making eye contact, slowly putting on his coat. It’s clear he plans to leave without a fight, and something about that just kicks JT’s fury up a notch. 

“The fuck you just say?” JT’s eyes are throbbing with rage, his blood pulsing in his veins and roaring in his ears. He’s not in his right mind and he knows it. Knows if he had a lick of common sense, he’d turn on his heels and leave. Get Malcolm out of there before the situation devolves. 

“You heard me. You two are a fuckin’ embarassment to this country. You know how many people have died so you two can run around, flaunting your rainbow asses?”

“Sure do. I was nearly one of them.” 

That’s not as satisfying as he wishes it was, because he’s still too young and foolish to separate real logic from words meant to taunt, meant to wound. 

“Sure you were, tough guy.”

“What are you gonna do,” one of the other students pipes up, and he’s enjoying it. Enjoying the reaction they managed to get out of JT. “You gonna show us how a fag hits—”

In his own defense, as JT will later tell the story, the big guy tried to hit first. He  _ tried. _

He explodes. Let’s the pent-up anger he keeps locked away in his chest come barreling out of him, uncontrolled. He spent too much of his life fighting, surviving, doing whatever it takes to come out on top, to back down now. 

JT doesn’t even come back to himself until he’s being physically pulled off the guy by half-a-dozen pairs of hands and he hears Malcolm’s voice. Looks down and sees a bloody pulp where a face used to be.

He sits in the administrative office the next day and stares at his busted knuckles while a board of directors and counselors lecture him on physical violence. On academic suspensions and the seriousness of his offense. 

He gets a full week this time, and the school makes it clear he’s on his last strike. They leave him with the impression that if he so much as looks at someone wrong, he’s out. 

When he trudges back into the dorm, feeling like a kicked dog with his tail between his legs, Malcolm is still there. Waiting to pull him into his arms and let him stew in his own shame and disappointment. 

“I’m sorry,” he repeats over and over again into Malcolm’s shoulder. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

Malcolm hushes him, and holds onto him with all the strength he has. He’s babbling about writing a letter to the school, demanding justice. His big brain already firing away to find solutions and answers and some kind of dignity in it all. 

JT tells him not to, and it’s heartwarming how much the kid cares but he knows. Deep down, he knows he brought it all on himself. 

“I shoulda just walked away,” he moans for the hundredth time that night, his head pillowed on Malcolm’s thigh. The TV is playing quietly in the background and he has a styrofoam plate of Thai food resting on his chest. He only managed a few bites before he decided he couldn’t stand the stuff, and moved on to beer.

“No.  _ We should  _ be able to eat out in public without being harassed,” Malcolm repeats patiently. He drops a hand to rub over JT’s short hair. 

“You’re being way too nice about this,” JT gripes. “Just tell me I’m a hot-headed idiot and let me be miserable.”

“Not a chance,” Malcolm stretches out, abandoning his food on the coffee table to turn his full attention to JT’s hair, running both hands over short curls with something too close to adoration.

JT presses his head back and basks in the touch, in the knowledge that in spite of all his crazy, Malcolm is still there. An immovable force bringing light into his life. Even when he feels like he doesn’t deserve it.

“You’re too good for me,” he breathes into the silence. He means it with every fiber of his being, and he wonders if Malcolm knows that. Knows how lucky JT really is. 

He doesn’t have to open his eyes to feel Malcolm’s smile. 

“Not by a long shot.” 

Malcolm pops open a beer and reaches for JT’s hand, pressing the ridged metal into his palm. “Be my valentine?” 

JT turns the bottle cap over in his hand, smiling stupidly up at blue eyes. “I thought you’d never ask.” 

**.**

JT’s eyes blink open. He’s staring up at a gray ceiling, a wobbly fan spinning out of time far above. 

He groans as he levers himself up, sitting with the sheets tangled around his legs. Scrubs his hands over his face and reaches over to hit his alarm before it bores a hole through his head. 

It’s too early. He hasn’t slept enough, and his phone was going off all night so he figures he might have cobbled together a solid three or four hours. Hours he spent dreaming. About moments he’s done his damndest not to think about at all for years.

He remembers falling asleep late, half-drunk, tossing and turning. Remembers looping Malcolm’s words in his head and sinking further and further into hopelessness with every replay. The morning doesn’t bring him any clarity, and he gets dressed on autopilot. Distracted, numb. 

He trudges into work, coffee in hand, and he’s already drained most of it. He should be used to shit caffeine by now, but he’s still dreading refilling his cup with the bullpen sludge. It’s a stretch to call the stuff coffee at all. 

Malcolm is sitting at the table in the boardroom, and he doesn’t look up right away. He’s immersed in whatever is sitting in front of him, a neglected laptop glowing dim blue light onto the right side of his face. From this angle, his scar is nearly invisible, and for a heart-stopping moment, he’s the same Malcolm the cop used to find sitting up in bed, studying instead of sleeping. Draining entire pots of coffee by himself, running on willpower and manic energy. Always ready with an ear-splitting smile. 

The cop feels his steps falter, like he hit an invisible wall and for a brief instant he’s senselessly terrified that he forgot how to walk, how to breathe. It passes in a heartbeat, and JT sits down across from the profiler, hesitant to interrupt. He forces himself not to stare.

“Good morning, Detective.” It sounds a little forced, like small talk to fill the silence. 

“Good morning,” he replies, wishing he could see Bright’s eyes. See if anything changed between them from one day to the next. 

Nothing has. Because Malcolm still won’t look at him. Won’t see him as anything more than an unwelcome intrusion into his peaceful life. 

Gil interrupts, sweeping in with his phone pressed up between his ear and a hunched shoulder. He drops a box of bagels and a tray full of coffee cups on the table gracelessly, hunting through them before finding the one he needs. He brings it over and sets it in front of Malcolm like he’s done it a million times before.

JT goes for the tray before it empties out, and the coffee is only marginally better than his own but at least it's not burnt. More caffeine is probably the last thing he needs at the moment, but if it’s what he has in place of sleep, well... Beggars can’t be choosers.

They spend the day drowning in busy work. In scouring shipping records and crime scene photos and interview transcripts from the dock workers. 

Malcolm disappears after lunch, muttering something about getting to class. JT thought he’d be relieved to see him go, to be free of that razor-sharp hypervigilance that keeps him tuned into the kid’s every breath, but he’s not. It just hurts.

Gil might be distracted, but it’s clear he doesn’t completely miss the unspoken tension hanging between the two men. He watches the profiler leave with a frown, and then turns dark eyes on JT. They’re full of questions. Too many questions.

The cop bites his tongue and turns away, doing his best to focus on the endless lines of text in front of him. They blur together, making his eyes and his skull throb in unison.

Gil’s eyes rest, heavy on the side of his head before the pressure eases. JT can almost feel the curiosity, concern, doubt rolling off the older man in waves.

For once, he can’t even blame him.

**.**

“You’re really gonna wear the blue one?” JT raises an eyebrow at Malcolm over his textbook, feeling his heart skip at the way cerulean eyes shine in contrast to the kid’s light blue shirt. “You’re gonna have every dude on campus following you around like a lost puppy.”

“Not if you come with me,” Malcolm flops onto the bed, pressing his face against JT’s shoulder. 

“You don’t have to go,” JT sighs, rubbing his face with both hands. “You could stay. Have a drink with me.”

“I promised Vijay I’d go. Kinda hoped I’d have an escort.”

“Any other night, you would,” JT sighs, and he feels bad turning Malcolm down. “But if I fail out of chem, I’m out. Done for the whole year.”

“Repeat it. We can get an apartment together and spend our nights in faux domestic bliss.”

“Don’t tease me with a good time.” JT abandons his books, wrapping both arms around Malcolm’s waist and dragging the smaller man on top of him.

Malcolm is cooperative, his hands moving over JT’s short hair and dipping in for a willing kiss.

“Can you just… take this test for me,” JT mumbles against his lips. “Put that bing brain of yours to good use, huh? Just wear my jacket and sneak into the back. Nobody will even notice.”

“Right,” Malcolm laughs. “We’re pretty much twins. We can pull a  _ Comedy of Errors _ .”

“No clue what that is, but it sounds smart.”

JT squeezes Malcolm tight against himself, thinking he’d love nothing more in the world than to skip both studying and this stupid party entirely. Spend the night in bed doing filthy things to the smaller man.

“Don’t even think about it.” Malcolm reads his mind, because of course he does, and wriggles out of JT’s grip and off the bed. “We can spend a night apart. It won’t kill us.”

“Don’t be so sure,” JT grumbles. “It just might. If I die, I don’t have to take this test, right?”

“I hear that’s how it goes. But then again, Professor Henry is kind of strict. He’ll probably mark you down as a failed-to-show.”

JT props one arm behind his head and watches as Malcolm finishes getting dressed. “Promise me you’ll call if you need me?” 

“I promise,” Malcolm smiles at him. Leans down to press a searing kiss to his lips. 

Malcolm grabs his jacket and keys. He smiles at JT from the door, and walks out of his life. 

It’s the last time JT sees him for ten years.

.

JT wakes up. 

Another dream. Another bittersweet memory he's stuffed down as far as he can hide it, rearing its ugly head now to remind him that the things he hides never really disappear entirely. 

He thinks about the last time he saw Malcolm as he drives to work. Ten years in the past, just beneath the surface. Scratching for air. He parks his car in the garage and scans in to take the elevator upstairs.

It’s coming back in waves. In sweeping, paralyzing moments that cripple him with doubt and anxiety. Fear that maybe this is all a dream, too. Maybe he’ll walk in and Malcolm won’t be around. The kid falling back into his life without warning was just a twisted, brutal figment of his own imagination. Born of insomnia and stress and too much caffeine chugged too late at night to be good for him. 

He pauses at the door, stricken by paranoia. He doesn't want to walk in.

But he does. 

Malcolm is still there. He hasn’t blinked out of existence. 

JT feels vertigo rushing in at the edges of his vision as he stands there in the doorway. Trying to make sense of everything he’s put his head through in the past week alone. Put his heart through. In that single moment, it feels like too much. 

The profiler looks up, and whatever he sees in JT’s face causes his eyes to soften.

“I—” JT isn’t even sure what he starts to say. Words fail him, and it all hits him at once. He stands there, paralyzed.

“JT,” Malcolm says softly, standing. It’s a struggle. He’s leaning hard, bracing himself on the table. One-handed because he got shot, because JT nearly shot him, couldn’t protect him, couldn’t do anything to help—

Before he can do something stupid, or worse, say it, JT turns on his heel and flees. At least it feels like fleeing, like a goddamned retreat. Because he isn’t sure how he can sit there and pretend everything is normal for another second.

Trying to control his ragged breaths, he falls back to the elevators. Punches the buttons over and over again until the doors slide open again with a soft chime. He wasn’t sure what his plan was besides getting  _ the hell out _ , but the fresh air helps him clear his head. He drags it into his lungs like he’s been underwater too long. 

Drowning. Holding a body against his chest that’s not breathing. Bleeding. Because he’s always holding onto things that are dying in his arms. 

His phone rings and he silences it. Hits the ignore button without bothering to see who’s calling. 

When he pulls himself together enough for rational thought, he shoots Gil a text. Makes an excuse about interviewing some of the names on his list. Spends the morning taking cabs around the city and knocking on doors that nobody feels like answering. He looks morosely down at the silver shield hanging, encased in leather around his neck, and can’t say he blames them. He figures if he was here on sketchy papers from Cuba, he wouldn’t want to talk to the cops either. 

It’s a poor distraction, and every time he pauses for breath he feels that well of senseless anxiety bubbling up in his head again. Desperate to escape, to explode. To find some kind of outlet before the pressure builds to critical mass. 

Gil catches up to him at noon. Heads him off walking down the precinct steps and turns him right back around with a firm hand on his elbow. 

“I’m sorry lieutenant,” JT rushes to say, thinking he knew this moment of reckoning was coming, and he spent all morning avoiding it. Failing to make a proper battle plan.

“Call me Gil,” the older man says like a knee-jerk reaction. He shakes his head, likely realizing that’s really not the detail he should be focusing on. “Okay, look. There’s something goin’ on here, and I get that you might not wanna talk to me about it. Trust me, I can get that. But if it’s going to interfere with your ability to work on the case, we can deal with that—”

“Malcolm and I dated,” JT hears himself blurt out. It’s too late to take it back, and he regrets it almost immediately but he can’t leave it at that. He can’t leave those words out there without explaining. 

He’s buzzing with nervous energy as he rubs a hand over his mouth, tucks it into his pocket to keep still. 

Gil just looks at him, patient. Understanding. 

“We didn’t just  _ meet _ , we dated,” JT repeats, thinking it sounds all wrong. “I guess you could call it that. We had something. I thought it was real. And then he… he disappeared.” 

It hurts to say it out loud, or maybe it’s everything hanging behind it. Waiting to fall like dominoes. The kind of clarity and emotion he wasn’t willing to load into this confession the first time he confronted Gil in his office.

“I see,” Gil says carefully, and he looks like he’s thinking hard. “That explains… a bit. Malcolm hasn’t said much about any of this, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“I know I’m being unprofessional,” JT groans, feeling like he needs to apologize. “It’s just a lot, coming back all at once. I don’t think he ever knew...” he trails off, unsure how to end that one. 

How to explain that it wasn’t just  _ something _ to him back then. It was everything. 

“Walk with me,” Gil says gently. 

JT walks. Stares at the sidewalk and wonders how he got himself tangled up in all this. How ten years of  _ absolutely nothing _ left him feeling so emotional and lost. Firing off left and right like he’s a twenty-two year old kid again, with no control over anything that comes out of his mouth. Out of his head.

“I can tell he meant a lot to you,” Gil says as they amble down the sidewalk. “Maybe he still does, unless I’m reading that wrong.”

JT shakes his head miserably, knowing there’s no use trying to hide it now. “It never really went away.”

“He has that effect on people, that’s for sure.”

“He did on me.” It’s still hard to say. A little surreal that he’s spilling his guts to his boss, of all people. “I know how stupid this sounds.”

“Not at all. And here I am, in the unique position of caring for both of you. You’re part of the team now, come hell or high water. Your success is mine. And Malcolm, well... He’s like family to me, you know that.”

“I know. Which is why I shouldn’t be dumping all this on you.”

“It’s not dumping, kid,” Gil smiles. “Let’s get coffee.”

**.**

JT sits with Gil in a coffee shop, bigger than it looked on the outside. Tucked into a dark corner where they can steal the illusion of privacy. 

“I’m sorry I took off this morning,” JT syas when he’s downed half of his espresso and is feeling marginally more put-together. “I don’t know what came over me.”

He does know, but he’s ashamed to admit it. Ashamed that he let emotion take control of him when he prides himself on being rational. Level-headed, steady. It’s clear that he’s a different person around Malcolm, and he isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or not.

Gil just looks at him, nodding his head thoughtfully. Studying him like a book he can’t read. 

“Do you want my advice?”

JT stares at Gil, wondering if he’s talking as Malcolm’s surrogate father or as JT’s boss. He nods, wordless.

“Talk to him. Really talk. This is something the two of you need to get sorted out, one way or another.”

“I tried,” he says, and feels guilty because he knows their awkward half-conversation, always avoiding the real issue, didn’t clear up much. If anything, he feels now that it might have made everything worse. “He doesn't want to talk to me.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Gil shrugs like he’s not surprised to hear it. “He’s stubborn as hell, and guarded. He’s not going to make it easy on you.”

For the first time, the cop thinks he knows what Gil is really saying. “You’re telling me to…?”

“I’m telling you, don’t give up on him. A lot of other people have.” Gil looks serious, deep brown eyes sparkling with a sadness JT doesn’t fully understand.

“I’m not gonna force myself into his life when he doesn’t want me there,” JT says incredulously, feeling like he shouldn’t have to say that out loud. “He makes his own decisions. Always did.”

“I’ve known that kid a long time, and trust me on this. He does want you there. He just… doesn’t know how to show it. Doesn’t know how to let people care about him.”

JT isn’t sure if that’s true, but Gil sounds pretty damn convinced. He still doesn’t know how to explain, how to communicate how pointless it was for him to even try to talk Malcolm out of his own head. He wants to... god knows he wants to. 

“You know, I was there.”

JT watches Gil’s face, tracks the range of emotions that flicker across his features almost too quickly for the eye to catch. He doesn’t interrupt, because he thinks if he does, Gil might stop talking entirely. 

“I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, shit. Like I said before, that’s Malcolm’s story to tell. But I will say… he went through a lot. He was hurt badly. As you can see, some of those wounds never completely healed. The physical, the psychological. But he’s worked hard to salvage what he could. He’s been very successful for his age, in spite of what happened, in spite of his family. He’s overcome a lot.”

JT tries to read between the lines, to hear what isn’t being said. To interpret the little clues Gil is leaving for him to find. 

“What makes you think… what makes you think he’ll even want to see me? To talk to me? Hell, he’s the one who took off.”

“He didn’t take off,” Gil cuts in, and there’s something hard in his voice. Almost angry. “He didn’t have any choice in what happened back then, believe me.”

JT’s chest tightens up. He wants to ask, to demand more. He knows Gil won’t offer, won’t answer. That he respects Malcolm’s privacy too much to do that to the profiler. 

“You’re a good kid,” Gil sighs. “I know, we haven’t known each other very long, but from what I’ve seen… you’d be good for him. I’m sure you were back then, too.”

“He never talked about me?” It sounds foolish to his own ears, to ask that out loud. Painful to think that their relationship meant so little to Malcolm.

“Not by name,” Gil admits. “But I knew there was someone. Someone he was afraid to contact after everything that happened.”

“Afraid?” JT feels sick. He doesn’t know how to answer that. What more he can possibly say.

“Trauma changes us, Tarmel. You should know that. You’ve seen it in this line of work often enough. Victims, other cops. Some of the suspects we meet out there on the street, taking it all out on the world.” Gil says it with such wholehearted earnestness, like somehow decades on the job never managed to steal that faith in humanity away from him. “It changes the way your brain works. How you feel about yourself, how you think.” 

JT knows. He knows Gil is right, and he knows above all that the lieutenant didn’t need to take time out of his day to give the other cop a pep talk. 

He thinks about all the ways he fucked up a good thing. Thinks about all the times he turned Malcolm down because he had to study. The times he wasn’t quick enough, wasn’t sharp enough, to help the kid on his bad days. When Malcolm couldn’t sleep, when he silenced mysterious calls and withdrew into himself like he could hide away inside his own head. The times when JT chose violence over peace... Chose to make himself someone Malcolm couldn’t trust. 

“Whatever happened, I’m glad you were there for him.” JT stares down at his coffee as he lets it out, admits that even if Malcolm couldn’t lean on him when things went wrong, then at least he wasn’t alone. 

“So am I,” Gil says, and he sounds like he’s a million miles away. Or a million years. 

“Thanks for the coffee,” JT thinks to say at last, because he’s at a dead end. He respects Gil too much, even after knowing him for such a short time, to push for more. 

“We’re a family here,” Gil smiles. “Don’t forget that. We’re here for each other.”

JT forces a smile that doesn’t feel natural anymore. 

When he and Gil make it back to the precinct, Malcolm is gone. JT thinks someday he’ll get used to that, because he always is. 

Between one breath and the next, Malcolm is always gone.


	6. toska

**.**

**toska**

{ta-ska} Albanian

(n.) a dull ache of the soul, a sick pining, a spiritual anguish

**.**

It’s late August and the brutal summer heatwave hasn’t let up for a minute. It soaks into their skin, clogging up the gears in their brains and making it hard to think, to breathe. To get up in the morning and find motivation to move through the routine. 

Somehow, they do it anyway. 

As one day blurs into the next, JT gets to know their little ragtag team. Small as it is, their unique perspectives and personalities tend to play gap-fill. Gil is a good leader—great in fact—but he’s distracted most of the time. Juggling a thousand-and-one different things and making it look easy.

JT plays the faithful workhorse, grinding out tasks as they land in front of him with the same dogged determination that’s carried him through most of his life so far. Biting back complaints about the monotony and long hours because he still knows he’s lucky to be here. 

Malcolm’s presence is predictably sporadic. Even in the middle of summer, it’s clear his work at the university keeps him busier than he lets on. 

Back when JT knew him, the cop was convinced that Malcolm was the smartest person he’d ever met. Manic at times; eccentric, undoubtedly. Now, he thinks he still underestimated him in a big way, because watching him make seasoned detectives look stupid is a wonder to behold. 

In spite of everything… the loaded history between them, the awkward half-steps to avoid each other in the hallway, the mumbled, too-polite greetings across briefing tables, the cop is still so damn proud of him. Proud to watch him shine, to see him breeze through their tangled caseload like it’s the simplest thing in the world. 

Then there’s Dani, and she’s still a n enigma to JT. Smart as a whip in her own way, like maybe she secretly used to be a supervillain or a druglord or a criminal mastermind, and finally decided to use her powers for good. Bringing that razor-sharp common sense balance to a team that sometimes feels top-heavy with big brains and testosterone.

Upon their initial meeting, JT was pretty convinced that she only tolerated his existence because it was the profesional thing to do. Answering only when she had to in little chopped sentences, like it was physically painful to drag the interaction out a second longer than necessary. 

Whatever changed, it changed quickly. Most nights of the week she invites him out to drink now, and when they’re three sheets to the wind and she’s still going strong, he thinks she would have made a hell of a soldier. 

She’s one of the best drinking companions he’s ever had, and certainly the best that’s still alive. Still here. 

Some nights, one or the other of them will have something to get off their chest. Some surface-level gripe about work. They pour it out over a Guinness and grunt at each other in empathy because odds are good it was a mutually unpleasant experience. 

Most nights though, they just sit at the bar together and watch the game and don’t say a goddamn word. Get in their respective cabs with gruff goodbyes and roll into work the next day without mentioning it. For that— the unflinching solidarity and wordless, unquestioning support—he thinks he loves her.

It’s one of those nights. JT wants a drink but he doesn’t want to break the easy routine.

They’re sitting in a briefing that apparently, absolutely, positively,  _ had  _ to happen at four o’clock and it ruins their chances of an early day and their moods right along with it. 

_ Hudson’s? _ He texts her under the table. 

Without so much as a brief glance at her phone, she shoots back a thumbs up emoji. 

By the time six o’clock rolls around they’re perched on their usual barstools, and the bartender is already going for their glasses. 

“What’s up with you,” Dani grunts at him, looking tired. She’s more observant than she lets on. 

“The usual,” JT forces a thankful grin at the bartender and slaps his Mastercard down on the bartop. 

“Bullshit and drama?”

“That about covers it.”

They go quiet after that, because as miserable as he is, he thinks it’s better to be miserable in company, and it feels like too much to spill out right now. Too much baggage with too many layers.

“Every time you walk in the room he looks like he’s constipated, you know.” It’s an unsolicited statement out of left field, thrown out casually, like they were having a conversation about it all along. 

JT turns his chin to look at her skeptically. Dani’s brown eyes are still fixed on the glowing screen above the bar, and he thinks that’s bullshit too, because she doesn’t care for soccer and that’s the only thing playing. 

Without looking at him, she sighs. “If you try to play like you don’t know who I’m talking about, I’m gonna punch you.”

The cop makes a face and nods, thinking that’s fair. “We’re that obvious, huh?” 

She laughs into her beer and doesn’t bother answering. 

She’s been pretty good about this. Ignoring the elephant in the room, not pushing or prying or asking too many questions about the situation. JT doesn’t think he’d have that same level of self-control if their positions were reversed. Another reminder that she’s got the lion’s share of common sense between them. 

“Gil’s been acting weird too. You all act weird.”

“Let me guess…  _ men _ .”

Her smile is real and unguarded and she fights it down quickly. “Careful. You’re one bad breakup away from coming to the dark side.”

“We used to know each other,” JT admits without really knowing why. “A long, long time ago.”

She actually gives him a look when she hears that. “Damn. He really got to you that bad.”

JT thinks of eerie blue eyes and blinding smile and the way it feels to care about someone more than you ever could yourself. He thinks about takeout and television and inside jokes. Hearts full to bursting. Tears and the kind of laughter that makes you cry for other reasons. 

He swallows hard and nods, just once. His chest hurts and he isn’t sure why. 

“He really did.”

**.**

They don’t have much time to get comfortable before their human trafficking case comes full-circle to haunt them. 

Eve greets them at the crack of dawn on a Monday with a stack of folders almost as tall as she is, and informs them that the DA’s office has finished interviewing their potential victims and they’re preparing to bring a case against DeSantis.

“We need this man—” she slaps down a lineup. “To fill in one of our missing pieces. Specifically, we need him to talk.”

“Who is he?”

“Eric Radford. He’s an elementary school teacher, ironically.” 

“And a… philanthropist?” Gil says aloud from behind his file folder. 

“He volunteers at animal shelters. Serves the homeless with the Salvation Army. Holds fundraisers for his students. You name it, he pads his his resume with it.”

Dani lets out a low whistle. “Either he’s going to hell, or we are.”

“Well, that would require a certain belief in organized religion that indicates bad people actually get punished for doing bad things.” Eve says it so casually, like she’s still spitting out facts and statistics about the case.

JT doesn’t miss the impressed quirk of Dani’s lips, and he rolls his eyes. 

“Multiple victims have picked him out of lineups,” Eve charges on. “We think he’s using his position of relative authority in the community to run kids for DeSantis.”

“That’s fucked up.” JT shakes his head, looking down at the mugshot. “He’s already in the system? How?”

“The single smudge on his spotless record? A DUI arrest from back in 2016. Of course, he used that to lobby for AA groups across the metro. He’s good at turning something like that into a publicity stunt, apparently.”

“How does he factor into all of this, exactly?” 

Malcolm speaks up from the back of the room, which is weird enough because he’s usually up front and center, buzzing with energy. Today he looks even more pale than usual, dark shadows hanging under his eyes like bruises. There’s a defeated exhaustion in his voice that doesn’t belong there. 

“We think he’s our mule. One of our victims specifically ID’d him as the one who would visit them at the safehouse. Bringing food or blankets, sometimes taking girls with him. They never came back.” 

A sober silence hangs over the room as they process that. Come to terms with the concept of an average, community-focused man being a lynchpin in something this dark. 

“This victim… are they going to testify?” Malcolm’s voice still sounds all wrong, like he’s wrapped up in his head.

It’s clear Eve is reading the strange energy too, and she looks a little puzzled at the question. “The judge has agreed to a protected remote testimony. Her identity will be obscured for her safety, but yes. She’s agreed to testify, thankfully.”

“Good,” Malcolm mutters, hunched over his knees with that lineup in his hands. “That’s good.”

“We’ll pay Mr. Radford a visit, Miss Blanchard,” Gil cuts in. He sounds tired, too, and he’s taking Malcolm’s strange behavior in stride like he knows something they don’t.

“We’ll get him to talk. We’ll get something out of him.” The profiler says it like a promise. 

Dani looks at JT and the cop doesn’t look back, because he knows her eyes are asking pointed questions he can’t answer. It’s hard to admit that he’s about as clueless as she is right now.

They clear out of the room in muted silence, gathering up coffee mugs and keys and phones as they go.

JT hangs back, stares at the back of Malcolm’s head and tries to piece together what he’s sensing. If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear there’s something about this case that’s getting into the kid’s head in a bad way. 

But he does know better... doesn’t he? Malcolm’s a professional, and he’s probably worked cases just like this one with Gil for years on end. For the most part, he certainly seems to know what he’s doing.

Even so, there’s something the cop can’t shake. Can’t name or define. Just a gut-deep, lingering uneasiness, like a prickling beneath his skin. 

Feeling inexplicably  _ off _ , JT flicks off the lights and shuts the boardroom door behind them.

**.**

Within the hour, they’re standing in the hallways of River East Elementary, enjoying the cool tile and air conditioning while they can. 

Gil and Malcolm took the Crown Vic, leaving Dani and JT to carpool in one of the unmarked units from the bottom level of the fleet garage. Dani had the good sense not to interrogate him on the drive, so they made the trip in relative silence, the radio a low, static-filled hum in the background. 

Finding the classroom was easy enough after badging their way past the front desk. The teachers’ names are posted in colorful bubble letters over the doors, clearly the crude and loving work of small hands. “Mr. Radford” hangs in bright pink over this one, and there’s a wide bank of windows looking in on the spacious room from the hallway.

Whatever’s wrong with Malcolm, it seems to have intensified on the drive over here so JT gives him a wide berth. Hesitant to be the spark that lights that particular fuse, because it’s clear something will eventually. 

Gil has his hands tucked into his trouser pockets, looking in at the group of young faces sitting in a circle around Radford, who’s clearly heavily invested in whatever he’s dramatically reading.

The lieutenant nudges Malcolm with his elbow, nodding his head through the glass. “See, you could give up all those long hours at the university, go teach kids. Gotta be less stressful than murder, right?”

Malcolm grimaces. “It’s a shame the subject matter I teach isn’t all that family friendly.”

“They gotta learn sometime,” Dani chips in, predictably pessimistic. 

“Do they really gotta learn at eleven?” JT wonders aloud.

The class—or sharing circle, or whatever the hell is going on in that classroom—looks to be wrapping up. The kids are standing, shouldering oversized backpacks and shoving desks and chairs back into formation.

“Mr. Radford?” Gil calls out, propping open the door to get the teacher’s attention before he can get too distracted. “Whenever you’re finished, we just need a moment of your time.” 

Radford nods at them with an innocuous smile, like this is all perfectly normal and herds of detectives come knocking on his workplace windows all the time.

He dismisses his little group of bright-eyed kids with a smile, seeing them off like he’s taking his time. While the last pair of stragglers file out, he makes his way over to them, propping the door and beckoning them inside politely.

JT shoulders through the door and takes his time looking the man over. He thinks he’s never seen a more average-looking white dude in his life. Their target is pale and pleasant-faced, with unremarkable features and unremarkable brown hair. The kind of face you could forget without much effort if you saw him in a crowd.

Looking at him now, it’s still hard to imagine he’s all wrapped up in something as twisted as human trafficking. But if the job has taught him anything... it’s that looks can be deceiving. 

“How can I help you, gentlemen?” Radford clasps his hands together like he’s still talking to children, still in innocent teacher mode.

Gil introduces himself, introduces the rest of the team like he’s done a hundred times before. Malcolm just stares. Watches Radford like he’s watching something play out on a silver screen.

“We have a few questions for you, in regards to a case we’re working on.”

“Me?” Radford’s eyebrows shoot up as he points a finger at his own chest. “Are you sure there hasn’t been some kind of mistake here?”

He’s good, JT will give him that much. Faking it with the kind of whole-hearted earnestness that would plant a seed of doubt in any cop’s head. 

_ Are we on the right track? Do we have the right guy?  _

_ Is it possible that this milk-toast motherfucker spends his weekends cuddling puppies, feeding the homeless, and trafficking teenage girls? _

“Do you know a man named Emilliano DeSantis?” Gil says it almost apologetically, like he’s sorry for wasting everyone’s time with a standard line of questioning. A carefully practiced veneer designed to comfort, to relax and disarm. 

If JT wasn’t watching so closely, he might have missed the way cornflower-blue eyes flicker suddenly. A darting little motion that vanishes quickly.

“I think so. He sponsors some of the events I volunteer for, down at the Salvation Army, doesn’t he? I don’t know that I’ve ever met him personally.”

“Are you sure about that?” Malcolm finds his opening, slides in with surgical precision. “We have a handful of witnesses that tell us you and DeSantis are quite close.”

JT side-eyes the kid, wondering if the day will ever come when Malcolm’s bluffs don’t pan out. When they hit a brick wall and it all goes to shit because they can’t really back it up. 

“I meet a lot of people,” Radford backpedals with a nervous laugh. “What is this about, detectives?”

“Just a standard follow-up,” Gil is quick to put him at ease, one hand out in a wordless  _ calm down _ gesture. “You know how these things go, right? Names come up, sometimes they’re the wrong ones, sometimes they’re the right ones. Either way, we’ve gotta run down our list.”

“I understand, of course,” Radford drags his hands down his trousers and looks very much like he doesn’t understand in the slightest. “I’m sorry, this is all just coming as such a shock to me.”

“Well nobody expects the cops to come knocking on their classroom door, right?” Dani sucks on her teeth and casts an appraising eye around the room, at finger-painted portraits and pipe-cleaner creations dangling from the ceiling. “Not unless you’re up to something.”

“What would I be up to?” Radford seems to think he’s found an ally in Gil, because he addresses him first. “I stay busy, so of course I run into a lot of different people. I don’t know most of them well, is all I’m saying.”

“So you wouldn’t call Mr. DeSantis a friend? Certainly not the kind you’d be on a first-name basis with? You’ve never been to his house?”

“No, of course not. He’s a pretty wealthy man, and I’m just a school teacher.” Radford is still trying to hold on to his composure, doing a pretty damn good job of it, all things considered. “I don’t know much about him. Is he in some kind of trouble?”

“Not yet,” Gil tips his head vaguely.

“Do you mind if I see your keys?” Malcolm looks right at Radford, like it’s the most rational request in the world and nobody in their right mind would turn him down. 

“My… keys…” Radford flounders, staring. 

“Yes. Your keys.”

There’s a moment of tension that passes then, like a stalemate. Radford stares at Malcolm, and the four of them all stare at Radford. Just waiting for something to happen.

“I suppose so,” Radford says slowly, like he was thinking about saying  _ no, _ but his keys are hanging from his belt on an ugly plaid lanyard and he has to know they can all see them.

He hands the keys over with a reluctance JT can’t understand, and from the raised eyebrow Dani throws at him, she’s just as mystified by this ploy as he is.

“What’s this one?” Malcolm holds up what is clearly a car keyfob, a silver Toyota emblem emblazoned on the front. 

Radford blinks at him, looking briefly at Gil like he’s waiting for one of them to explain the joke. “It’s my car key,” he answers slowly, carefully.

“Sounds right.” Malcolm shuffles through the keyring, finding another. “This one?”

“That unlocks the closet in my classroom, right there—oh, and that one goes to my desk.”

“You’re doing great,” Malcolm flashes a smile that only looks condescending if you know him well enough. “These two? Cute pattern.”

“My house keys. The doorknob, and the deadbolt.”

Malcolm holds up the only gold key on the ring, the last one. He doesn’t ask aloud, just looking at the other man expectantly. 

Radford swallows, shifts slightly. “I—that opens my garden shed, I think. I haven’t been in there in a while.”

“You hesitated.” Malcolm frowns. “Why?”

Radford balks, and JT finally sees the panic setting in. “I didn’t remember, like I said it’s been a long time, you know—”

“Has it been a long time since you used it, or are you lying about what it belongs to?” Malcolm’s easy smile is gone. He’s all sharp eyes and focused energy now, going in for the kill like he smells blood. “Is it possible that you actually used it, and pretty recently, to get into a safehouse owned by one of DeSantis’ shell companies?” 

Radford swallows again, harder this time. He’s visibly sweating. Not a practiced liar, not a hardened criminal. Just a snake in the grass. An opportunist hiding behind his privilege and position. 

He stares at Malcolm, and JT watches the man crumple. 

“I want my lawyer.”

**.**

Radford is hauled off in handcuffs courtesy of a uniformed squad car, bound for the precinct and the booking process. JT guesses he’s going to be making a long-ass call to his lawyer somewhere in there, too. 

Dani vanishes quickly to occupy herself with the self-appointed task of getting a signed consent-to-search form from the school superintendent, more focused on the job at hand than the rest of her team seems to be. 

JT is standing back out in the hallway, watching Malcolm and Gil have what appears to be an extremely heated conversation behind the glass in that empty classroom. His stomach sinks, because he knew something was up with the kid and he almost talked himself out of believing it. Out of seeing what was right in front of his face.

He waits for a lull, for a chance to crack the door and peek in, make sure it’s safe to enter. Gil is circling the wide desk, his hands on his hips, a frown hanging on his face that has nothing to do with the case anymore. Malcolm has retreated, pacing the other side of the room and doing a terrible job of looking busy.

“Where do you want me, boss?” The cop hardly dares to ask, to interrupt the tension and furious energy. 

“We need to start… going through all this shit.” Gil half-heartedly flips up a stack of paperwork on Radford’s abandoned desk. “Still waiting on warrants for his phone, his house…”

JT’s eyes shift to Malcolm and back, trying to figure out if this is a good moment to retreat, or if he just needs to get them all focused back on the job. On work, on their case. Grinding out one goal at a time.

“Okay. The boots can bag and tag all this stuff. You want me to head back to the precinct, or…?”

Gil shakes his head, and he doesn’t have time to answer before Dani breezes back in. Her eyes move awkwardly between Malcolm and JT before she purses her lips, snapping the form in her hand loudly. 

“Gil,” she turns on her heel, the subject change painfully obvious. “Looks like the boys have things covered here. Wanna stop for joe on the way back in?”

Gil rubs his forehead, looking like a man who is utterly defeated, and simply nods. 

“I’ll come with you,” Malcolm says coldly, taking a halting step towards the door. 

Gil stops him with a single look. “Take a look around, see if anything catches your eye. Call in the boots to finish boxing everything up when you’re done.” His eyes glide over to JT who is just standing there trying to understand what’s happening. 

“Don’t leave this room until you wrap things up,” the lieutenant adds, and it’s clear he’s not talking about the case. “Handle your business. Both of you.”

And with that he leaves, following Dani out to the car as the door shuts slowly behind him. 

JT stands right where he’s at, holding his breath without knowing why. Getting left here is throwing him for a loop, making him rethink everything. Telling him in no uncertain terms that whatever Gil and Malcolm were arguing about… his name came up. 

Malcolm is humming with energy, and JT can’t get a read on that either. For a moment, he thinks the profiler might actually walk right out that door and leave, orders be damned. 

It seems like that exact thought is going through the kid’s head too, and he stands facing the door in silence, looking like a bomb about to go off. Thankfully, that doesn’t last long. 

The kid rounds on him, looking half-furious and half-broken. 

“You talked to Gil?” There’s something manic and bright shining in the kid’s eyes. Full of hurt and disbelief. “About me, about  _ us…  _ what right did you have?”

JT is taken aback, his brain rushing to find a way out. A way to explain. 

“He didn’t tell me shit, if that’s what you’re worried about.” The words sound meaningless, like he isn’t really saying what he means to. 

He’s reeling, trying to put it all together. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what happened: that Gil laid shit out for the profiler and it didn’t go over well. Even so, it still doesn’t entirely explain the way Malcolm was acting that morning at the precinct, his reactions to the case. 

There’s more going on here than JT can see, something deeper running beneath the surface. He’s missing something, or maybe he’s just not quite smart enough to put it all together. He wasn’t ready for this. Wasn’t prepared to see something real and raw and painful behind that careful facade, cracking dangerously. 

“It doesn’t matter!” Malcolm’s voice rises, and it’s been a long time since JT heard him sound like that. “It wasn’t your place.”

“And where exactly is my place?” 

The cop struggles to stay calm, rational, because one of them has to. He’s out of control here and he knows it, playing defense. For the moment, the case lies forgotten, a footnote to the storm between them.

If he’s being honest it’s almost relieving. To see a real emotion, a reaction. The kind Malcolm is so fond of pulling out of everyone around him but never shows himself. To finally have the conversation they’ve been dancing around for weeks. 

“Somewhere else. Anywhere else.” 

Malcolm is vibrating with anxiety, pacing hard. His one good hand running endless lines through the hair hanging into his face. He almost stumbles when he turns too quick on his bad leg, and it takes everything the cop has in him to avoid jerking forward to catch him. 

“I think maybe I’m right where I’m supposed to be, actually.” JT’s as surprised as Malcolm is that he’s brave enough to say that aloud. 

He figures if he’s brave enough to say that, maybe he’s brave enough to say some other things, too. 

“Look. I told you I still see that same old kid when I looked at you... And I do. Sometimes I’m thrown off because it feels like you haven’t changed at all. And then I see something, and I’m just... Surprised by how much you  _ did  _ change.” 

Malcolm laughs, and it’s a ugly, vicious sound. Another way he’s changed. 

“Yeah, crazy how time does that to people.” He’s hurt and it’s showing.

The cop isn’t going to take that bait, and he forges ahead. “You used to believe in yourself. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

“What’s left to believe in?” That fire burns bright in Malcolm’s eyes. “What’s left? If there was anything good in me, it’s gone. That’s what happens, JT. That’s what time does, what life does. It  _ ruins people. _ ”

“You’re not a bad person,” JT says patiently, because it’s obvious as hell to him but it’s clearly something he needs to spell out. 

“I’m not just a bad person, I'm a terrible one.” The kid says it with so much conviction, so much finality. Like there’s not a word JT or anyone else could possibly say to change his mind. 

That’s not going to stop the cop from trying. 

“Nobody is really good or bad all the way through,” JT reasons out, trying to keep his temper in check because Malcolm is infuriating. Irrational in all the worst ways when it comes to his own self-perception. “Hell, look at where we’re standing right now—this dude, he was supposed to be one of the good ones, right? You just balance it out, one way or the other, and it’s pretty damn clear which way you fall on the scale.”

Malcolm is stubbornly silent, looking away. 

“Why is it so hard for you to believe that?” JT doesn’t have the answer any more than Malcolm does, but it bothers him. Sticks under his skin like a splinter, swollen and aching. “That you’re a good person, who deserves good things.”

“I’m not. I don’t know what more I need to do to make you believe it.” Malcolm is hunched in on himself, his posture radiating defensiveness. Pain filtered down into anger. “I don’t know why you’re the only one who can’t see it.”

“You’re the one who doesn’t see shit,” JT cracks, jabs an angry finger at the kid’s chest, a decade of pent-up hurt and anger bleeding through. “You never knew how to see it when someone dared to give a shit about you, and that’s  _ not on me.  _ You hear me? I ain’t ever gonna apologize for caring about you.”

“Ten years, JT.” Malcolm braces his good hand on his knee, and his shoulders are tense, lined with stress. He snaps upright again quickly, like he can’t hold still. 

“How could you wait that long? How could you let me of all people be the reason—I mean…” He laughs dryly, throwing up a hand in frustration. “Who  _ does  _ that? Who comes back like this, after years— _ years _ , JT—and just says  _ let’s try again _ , like I didn’t do that to you—”

“Shit was out of your control.” JT cuts in and he knows he doesn’t sound as confident, as controlled as he wishes he did. “You don’t have to tell me what it was, or why you blame yourself. I know, kid. It wasn’t your choice.”

“It was.” Malcolm shakes his head hard, rushing full steam ahead. “I manipulate people, I push for a reaction, I use people. I’m the worst kind of fucked up, because I take everything. Secrets, emotions, and I used them like tools. What about that makes you think I have any chance at redemption?”

JT pulls up his shoulders, incredulous. “That’s your job. It’s your job to find things people don’t want you to find. Look at what you just did with that sick fuck; you pulled shit out of him, and that’s going to help a lot of people. So what, being good at what you do makes you a bad person? Where the hell is this coming from?”

“You don’t get it.” Malcolm is stubborn as ever, and he’s weaponizing it. Lashing out. “You never understood.”

That stings, and JT tries not to let it show because it was  _ meant _ to sting. Meant to push him away, inch by inch until he falls over that edge and Malcolm is safe again. Back in his quiet, miserable little world behind all the walls he built up to keep the pain out. To keep the good things out along with it. 

“I don’t want you here, don’t you get it?” Malcolm’s voice falls quiet, like it hurts him to say that.

JT sets his jaw and forces himself to stand there. Riding out the hurt and the emotion and the crashing waves of guilt. “Look me in the eye, then. Make me believe it.”

It’s a slow reaction, like the profiler is fighting a war in his head. Fighting himself. He looks up and forces himself to stare JT right in the eye. “I don’t  _ want you here _ .”

“Say it again.” JT takes a challenging step forward, his heart racing. “You better fucking mean it this time.”

He prays to every higher power he never quite believed in that the kid won’t do it. That he won’t be able to. He’s gambling everything on this, but it’s better to know, isn’t it? To settle this once and for all, sign a flourished  _ finis _ on this tragic, ill-fated romance, ten years old and dragging on. 

He watches a tear break free of Malcolm’s eye, and maybe it’s anger or pain or frustration or all of it, but JT thinks that his heart breaks all over again at the sight.

The profiler shakes his head, gathering up his coat with trembling hands. That damn coat he doesn’t need in 90 degree weather, but he carries around anyway like it’s armor. Like it can protect him from a cruel world.

JT can only watch, feeling empty. 

Malcolm walks out. Limping, hiding inside himself. Pushing through the classroom doors like he can’t get away fast enough.

The cop is left standing there, alone in an empty room ringing with words that spent too long unsaid. He hears a sound come out of his throat that he doesn’t quite understand, can’t interpret. Shattered.

He forces himself to breathe, to run a hand over his mouth. He’s shaking, can’t begin to understand why. What he’s feeling. 

He just knows that it hurts.


	7. litost

**.**

**litost**

{lee-tost} Czech

_ (n.)  _ a feeling that synthesizes grief, sympathy, remorse and longing

**.**

It’s an exercise in practiced inefficiency, but JT drags out managing their mini crime scene until well after lunch. Supervising the patrol officers who pour in to shove all of Radford's personal items into cardboard boxes labeled with case numbers in permanent marker. 

He’s not all the way there, not really present. Just going through the motions, pretending to be interested in all the mundane paperwork they pull out of that stupid desk. 

Inside, he’s nursing wounds he doesn’t dare show. Doesn’t dare to look at too closely, because he feels too close to broken. To giving up, to falling in on himself completely. He tells himself to hold it together a little longer, for a few more hours. Just long enough to limp home with his tail between his legs so he can fall to pieces somewhere safe. 

JT is feeling just stupid enough to text Gil and let him know he’s going home before he does. Taking the unmarked Crown Vic because that’s what the damn thing is for, and he doesn’t have the energy to take it back to the precinct. 

Dani calls him at almost the exact moment that he falls bonelessly into his couch, and he doesn’t think it through before he answers. He doesn’t even manage a sullen  _ “hello”  _ before she’s steamrolling him entirely. 

“Two things.” Dani’s casual sarcasm puts him at ease, because it’s familiar. Expected. “I might have asked Eve out. And she might have said, and I quote,  _ you’re paying. _ That’s a date, right?”

“That’s great, Dani,” JT forces himself to say. To sound more relaxed and composed than he feels at the moment. “Thought you’d never make it happen.”

“You don’t know me very well. Obviously.”

“Dare I ask what the second thing is…?” He squeezes his eyes shut and prays that it’s all over quickly. 

“Oh. Right. I just got off the phone with Bright.”

JT’s eyes snap open. “You did?”

“Yeah. What the hell did you do to him, Tarmel? That poor kid’s a mess. I almost feel kinda bad for him.”

JT sputters, sitting up straight on the couch. “What did I—?  _ I  _ didn’t do anything!” 

“I’m just sayin’, you must be swinging around a coke can or something because that dude is hooked on you bad. Personally, I don’t really get it.”

“That’s inappropriate,” JT protests half-heartedly, scowling across the room at his blank TV screen because he can’t figure out what it all means. “Is he okay?”

“Shit, you’re both done for. I don’t know if I’d say  _ okay _ , but like... He was babbling on about hurting you, and how you’d probably never forgive him. It was a little all over the place honestly.” 

JT feels something unclench in his chest, warm and unfamiliar. “He… said that?”

“Why are men like this,” Dani gripes, pulling the phone away as she swears unintelligibly. “It’s a miracle you manage to get anything done without us.”

“Can’t argue that.” JT tries not to give away how fast his heart is racing. “Just tell me what he said, Dani.”

“I just got to the gym, I can’t talk.”

JT finds himself standing without realizing he’s even doing it, gripping his phone hard. “Don’t you dare hang up, I swear—” 

“Will you two just talk it out already? I’m serious. Or have some hot and heavy makeup sex, or whatever the hell men do instead of talking about their feelings.”

JT rubs his eyes, thinking that if Dani really knew how many times he’s tried to  _ just talk it out _ with the infuriating profiler, she’d have some even stronger words on the topic of men and poor communication skills.

“He’s not angry at me?”

“I’m not a fucking mind-reader; ask him yourself.”

“Dani,” JT growls. He hears his phone case creak ominously and forces himself to relax his grip. “Come on.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so? He was rambling, but he does that a lot. Said Gil wasn’t picking up, so I guess I was the next logical choice. He probably could have picked someone a little more sympathetic, but like I said, I don’t understand men—”

There’s a rush of noise on the other end, and a quick sigh from Dani. “Look, I gotta go. Just call the man, will you?”

And with that the phone line goes dead, and JT is left staring into space. His mind racing and his heart in his throat. 

_ I don’t have his number _ is what he texts to Dani after standing there, overthinking for too long.

She replies slowly, sending him a phone number without commentary. 

He types the number into his phone, taking care to double check it more than once to ensure he has it right. After that, he isn’t quite sure what to do next. 

He could call the kid, see if maybe he’s come to his senses. Then again, it really doesn’t feel like a conversation he wants to have over the phone, where he can’t see bright blue eyes and scarred lips. Can’t read the air like electricity between them. Can’t stop Malcolm from losing his nerve and hanging up. 

Maybe he needs to give the kid some time, he reasons, some space to cool off. To work through whatever it is that’s raging through his head, making him foolish and angry and ready to snap at a moment’s notice, and JT’s not quite arrogant enough to think that’s all him. That he’s really the only thing getting under the kid’s skin these days.

Waiting is a good idea, he rationalizes. They’ve both said too much today, poured too much energy into the wrong words. 

Before he can make a decision, Gil’s name pops up on his phone with a text message. JT is expecting something along the lines of a harsh scolding for taking off early, but the day isn’t done surprising him. 

_ Report at 0400. Signed warrant on the safehouse _ . 

JT stares down at his phone, feeling that familiar rush of adrenaline course through his veins.

Well, shit.

**.**

They hit the safehouse before dawn. Stacked up like rows of little toy soldiers in all black, with rifles slung and battering rams out front. Helmets and sunglasses and radios turned down low. 

The front door caves in with a splintering crack. 

The smell hits before anything else does. Putrid and rotten; the air is thick with it.

During his time on patrol, JT used to carry a jar of vaporub in his duty bag for days like today. Long, agonizing days when you could smell the stench of death all the way from the street. He doesn’t have any with him now, and he thinks it’s been too long since he’s seen a scene like this one. The kind he always secretly hoped he’d never have to see again. 

He pulls a black gaiter over his nose and mouth as they make entry, but it doesn’t help. That smell clings to it. He knows from experience that he’ll be smelling it for days too, long after he’s showered until his skin is raw. Rinsed his mouth and nose with soap until he’s gagging. That damn smell will still be there.

Death.

The flies are caked up against the windows, crawling and moving like some kind of swarming reptile. They all kick up as the entry team breaches the door, filling the air. Bouncing off his vest, his arms, his face. 

The bodies are huddled together in the back room behind chains and a padlock, and it’s hard to figure out how many there are at first. Hard to tell where one emaciated limb ends and another begins, which ones are male and which ones female. Which ones died of starvation and which ones might have cried for mercy before they were shot in the head. 

There’s no working plumbing in the house, just buckets in corners. Moldy bits of bread, dirty blankets and scraps of clothing. It’s the kind of inhumane conditions you wouldn’t wish on cattle, let alone living, breathing, humans. 

Off to his left, JT hears one of the cops that made entry with them gagging. Hears boots headed for the door and muted choking noises from outside. 

Not a damn one of them can blame the guy. There’s no way to get used to something like this. 

JT steps outside after they sweep the house, pulling the mask down from his mouth and nose and dragging in long gulps of fresh air. Even as hot and humid as it is, the air is still blessedly clean. Tinged with morning sunlight.

JT scans the drawn faces and tired eyes gathered around him, and is selfishly glad to find that Malcolm is nowhere to be seen. He hopes Gil never called him, never gave him a chance to get wrapped up in something this ugly. Especially after what happened last time.

“Do you think we could have done something?” Dani asks Gil quietly. “Found them sooner… helped them… Could we have done anything?”

Gil shakes his head. “You can’t think like that. Don’t ever ask that.”

JT watches the sky change. Watches scene techs trek in and out of the dilapidated house with the bars on the windows. Watches sweat drip down Gil’s neck as the sun peaks overhead.

He watches bodies come out of the house, one by one in black canvas bags. He counts fourteen before he feels his stomach churn. 

The last thing he wants to do is eat, but he does anyway. Digs into the basket of granola bars and fruit snacks on the tailgate of the crime lab van next to the coffee decanter, and forces something down his throat that he can’t name later. He rinses it down with coffee that doesn’t taste like anything at all. 

He stands with the other detectives, compares notes. Spitting out clinical terms like  _ rape _ and  _ sexual assault _ and  _ malnourished _ like they’re preparing for an exam in the academy. Like none of it holds any weight or means anything. 

Right now, it doesn’t. For now they’re cogs in a machine, processing their tasks like good little robots who don’t feel anything. 

_ Keep the lid on it _ , they tell themselves over and over. Do your job. Do whatever you need to do, anything to keep it together and focus on the goal. On taking this photograph, logging that piece of evidence. Taping off this room or that wall. Taking neat little notes like black ants marching across white lines. 

That detached, clogging heaviness lifts briefly when they find a survivor. A six year-old girl hiding in a closet in the basement. She has a bullet wound to the head that took her ear off with it, and she’s barely conscious. Barely alive. 

There’s an ambulance staging down the block, so they have help there quickly. A team of medics with nerves all on edge, going to work to stabilize the skeletal body they pull out in a blanket. JT only catches a glimpse of a dirty brown hand hanging out of the blanket before she’s gone, whisked away into the back of the bus. 

The detectives all huddle together and listen in on the EMS channel as the ambulance roars away. An eerie silence hangs between them as they pray, silently, that something good can come out of all of this. That they can go home tonight and tell themselves they made a difference. 

They just listen. Listen as the paramedics announce they’re starting CPR. Powering up the defibrillator. Charging it once, twice. Three times. They listen to clinical voices and clinical words that finally tell them when it’s all for nothing. The kid is dead before the ambulance hits St. Luke’s. 

They disperse silently after that, going back to work like zombies on autopilot. Crushed and trying damn hard not to let it show. 

It’s the kind of day that feels like it’s never going to end. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel. Nothing to look forward to, because their shoulders are heavy with the knowledge that it’s all going to come crashing in on the drive home. It always does.

They work into the evening before a fresh crew shows up to relieve them, to send them home with a pat on the shoulder and mumbled words with no meaning behind them.

JT comforts himself with the realization that Malcolm never showed up. It’s a small detail, but one he’s infinitely grateful for. On top of everything else, perhaps selfishly, he’s glad he doesn’t have to worry about that too. About watching Malcolm put up walls behind his eyes, hiding from a case he’s already knee-deep in and sinking. Falling apart at the seams.

When it’s finally over, JT goes home and turns on his shower. He stands under the freezing cold water, and maybe it’s just for a few minutes. Maybe it’s hours. He washes the smell out of his nostrils and fights his own racing heartbeat. Fights that sour, sickening disgust that curls in his stomach and crawls up his throat. 

When he finally dries off and sits down on his couch, he stares at the blank TV screen and doesn’t move. 

He blinks and the living room has turned dark around him. He doesn’t know how much time has passed, or where his brain went for all that time. Worse, he doesn’t even care. 

His eyes burn and he presses his palms into them hard. His heart is racing again and he doesn’t have an excuse for that, or a reason or an explanation. His head is spinning and his stomach growls. The idea of trying to eat dinner makes him feel almost violently nauseous. 

_ Wanna drink? _ He texts Dani instead, unsure what exactly he expects her to say. 

He sees the telling  _ read _ notification pop up. She doesn’t answer.

And so he sits there, circling the drain, lost in his own head. Lacking the energy to do anything else, even if he knows he should. 

He’s desperate enough to pull out his phone again, write another text and send it before he can stop himself. And he should. He should be better than this. Have more self-control, more rational capacity to distance himself when he gets like this. 

_ Where were you today? _

Almost as soon as he sends it he knows it was the wrong move. He knows it was none of his business, and even if it was… after their last conversation, he can’t imagine Malcolm will be happy to hear from him. But he’s desperate right now, raw and bleeding at the edges. Out of control and flailing for something familiar. A voice or a face he recognizes so he doesn’t have to be alone in his head. 

He’s surprised when his phone lights up. Surprised the kid responds to him at all. 

_ Gil wouldn’t let me come. _

JT blinks at that, wondering what it all means. Wondering why Gil insisted the kid sit this one out, and more troubling, why Malcolm actually chose to listen. By now he knows there’s not a force on heaven or earth that could possibly keep Malcolm away if he wanted to be there. 

His fingers hover over the keyboard, but for the life of him he can’t figure out what to say. He can’t decide if he wants to apologize, or make small talk, or throw his phone across the room and drown himself in alcohol for the rest of the night. 

In the end, he doesn’t do any of those things. He puts his phone in his pocket instead. Grabs his keys, puts his boots on, and walks out the front door. 

**.**

It’s bitterly cold in the dorm room when JT wakes up, groggy and disoriented at the crack of dawn. He’s tired as hell but his internal clock is relentless, waking him up more effectively than any blaring alarm clock. 

He fell asleep with his books and laptop sprawled out on the bed, and he hears them thud to the floor as he rolls over and sits up. 

“Morning,” he says automatically, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “You get in late?”

Silence greets him. He blinks hard, shaking the cobwebs loose, and turns to look over his shoulder. The side of the mattress where Malcolm sleeps is empty. 

“Malcolm?” He frowns, calling towards the bathroom. The door is cracked and the light is off, so it doesn’t make sense for the kid to be in there. 

JT lurches to his feet and wanders around the small space, checking the kitchenette and the bathroom again. The lights are all off. The dorm is empty. He makes another circle just to be certain, because his foggy brain can’t quite make sense of it. 

He knows Malcolm has his own apartment off campus, an expensive-looking little one-room suite paid for by mysterious money the kid doesn’t like to talk about much. It’s been a long time since Malcolm’s stayed over there, though, and it’s usually on the weekends when JT roadtrips back to his mom’s place.

It’s too long before he thinks to check his phone; he finds it in the tangle of blankets. The battery is dead. He curses and plugs it in, anxiety bubbling in his gut. It only gets worse when he turns it on and doesn’t find anything. Not a single missed call, no text messages.

He slides over to his contacts and hits  _ call _ on Malcolm’s name. The line clicks and goes straight to voicemail.

Swearing, shaky and disoriented, JT stands up, leaves his phone where it is and does another frantic circle of the tiny dorm. Back and forth, even pulling the door open to check the abandoned hallway like that makes any sense. 

Nothing makes sense. He has no idea what could have happened, what it means that Malcolm is gone. He tells himself not to panic, but that only makes everything worse. Makes it feel more real, like something terrible happened and he has no way of knowing what it is yet. 

Buzzing with nerves, he pulls on his shoes and a jacket, and doesn’t bother locking the door behind him. Malcolm has his own key, but it still makes him feel better to think that if the kid comes back he can just walk right in. Laugh at JT when he sees him, explain it all away with some story that makes perfect sense and leaves JT feeling stupid for worrying. 

By mid-morning, he’s circled campus twice and the panic he was trying so hard to keep the lid on has come clawing out of him full-force. He’s breathless and shaky, his head spinning. Desperate enough to stop by the campus security office and tell them he wants to make a missing persons report.

He leaves with his tail between his legs, feeling more foolish than ever. An irritated old man in a uniform stretched to capacity by his round frame gave him a stern dressing-down, informing him that this was a college, sir, and kids passed out at parties overnight all the time. They tell him to come back after forty-eight hours and send him on his way out the door. 

Every fifteen minutes, if he can force himself to wait that long, he calls Malcolm’s phone. Every time it goes to voicemail. 

At noon he calls his professor and asks him if he can take a rain check on the test, telling him it’s an emergency. The man is predictably unsympathetic, informing him in no uncertain terms that JT will in fact show up, or he will in fact receive an automatic fail. 

Sick with terror, JT forces himself to go. He slides into his desk and speeds through that stupid test that feels suddenly unimportant. It’s the reason that he didn’t go with Malcolm last night, and somehow that’s all he can think about. It makes his skin crawl. 

He ditches the rest of his classes and catches a cab to Malcolm’s apartment. It’s a short walk, but every second feels priceless. Feels important. 

He pounds on the door. Peers in through windows dark with drawn curtains. There’s a stack of mail hanging out of the black metal box on the porch, proof that nobody’s walked through that door in a long time. 

He walks back to campus, hunched against the cold, hopeless. Hollow.

Days pass. Then weeks. 

JT gets a hold of Vijay, ambushing him in the hallway after a morning class. He tells JT that Malcolm never showed up to that party, and doesn’t seem too concerned about it when he wanders off again. 

It becomes routine. Stopping by the security office to annoy them with questions, because once they learned he wasn’t family they weren’t about to let him make a report. He spends his days making endless phone calls that never ring. Stopping by Malcolm’s apartment.

And one day the curtains are gone, and the mail is gone out of the box and he can look right through the window and see the ugly truth. The place has been cleaned out. There’s not a single book or piece of furniture left in the place. No sign that anybody ever lived there in the first place.

Numb, JT hits  _ call _ on Malcolm’s name. Unable to count how many times he’s dialed that number since he woke up that morning.

This time an automated voice tells him that the number is unavailable. Disconnected.

For the first time, he thinks he understands. For better or worse, Malcolm is really gone. Not just that  _ not here right now _ kind of gone, but the kind of permanent, irreversible absence that leaves him bleeding inside. Like something was ripped right out of him. Out of his head, out of his life. He’s hurt and confused and reeling, but seeing that empty apartment hammered home the ugly truth. That Malcolm didn’t just disappear, he left. 

And so he tries. Tries to go back to the routine. To order takeout for one instead of two, to study for classes that have lost all meaning to him. To fall asleep alone.

Most of all, he tries his damndest to forget all about Malcolm Whitly. 


	8. dozakh

**.**

**dozakh**

{do-zuk} Russian 

_ (n.) _ a place of torment one believes they are in when they are separated from their lover; hell

**.**

It’s late, close to nine, but JT knows exactly where he’s going to find Malcolm anyways. It’s uncanny, he thinks, that after all this time he still knows the kid so well. And maybe that isn’t saying much, because for every one thing he knows, there are about a dozen he doesn’t have a clue about. 

That concept humbles him. Brings him skulking in through the university doors, feeling like every footstep is too loud in the utter stillness. He nods at a janitor polishing the tile in the hallway, but it’s clear the man doesn’t really care that he’s here at all. The janitor goes about his work with blank eyes and earbuds turned up loud enough that the cop can hear the white noise. 

JT keeps walking, trying to remember where he’s going from the last time he visited. The hallways look different at night. The strips of ambient lighting that hang over portraits and plaques are dim now, draping every corner in darkness. 

Malcolm’s massive classroom is empty, haunted by the bustling bodies and voices that inhabited it a few hours ago. Shadows linger tall and ominous in every corner, and if the cop’s being honest it’s all a little creepy. Lifeless, or mostly.

“There’s nothing you could say that would change my mind. I mean it.” 

For a heart-dropping moment, JT thinks that quiet voice, echoing in the hollow acoustics, is meant for him. 

Malcolm is standing downstairs beneath that massive chalkboard, one hand braced on the dull green surface. It takes a minute for the cop to realize he’s holding his phone to his ear, his shoulders heaving. 

JT pauses on the steps, thinking that once again, he’s managed to barge in on something he wasn’t supposed to see. Intruding where he isn’t welcome, and isn’t that just the story of his whole damn life at this point? 

“It’s none of your business,” the profiler hisses, his voice raising slightly as he tilts his head back. “How many times do I have to tell you—”

There’s silence for a moment as Malcolm stands there, just listening. 

“You have no idea what you’re talking about. As usual. I’m fine, not that it’s any of your business. Don’t call me again,” the profiler says quietly. He jerks the phone away from his ear like it burns, throwing it onto his rolling chair in a burst of half-hearted rage. 

For a moment the profiler jerks, taking a half-step like he wants to pace but maybe his body isn't quite feeling up to it. Instead he slowly moves his phone and sinks into his chair, holding his arm close to his chest even in that damn sling. 

JT just stands where he’s at, warring with himself. Watching Malcolm move like he can’t stand to sit still. Carefully shuffling together stacks of stapled papers and three ring binders into perfect symmetry on his wide desk. Picking them up again, organizing, putting them back down. Senseless motion meant to still his brain. 

He thinks briefly about turning around and leaving, making his escape before he’s noticed. He isn’t sure what stops him… if it’s the agony bubbling in his chest that warns him of the darkness waiting to come flooding in, biding it’s time until he’s alone with his thoughts again. Or if it’s the fact that when he tried texting Malcolm earlier, the kid actually answered him. An awkward olive branch that could have so easily been ignored. 

Whatever it is, it gives him just enough confidence to take a step, and another. He walks down the stairs slowly, deliberately. Thinking that if Malcolm gets fed up with him and tosses him out on his ass, it would be nothing less than he deserves. 

“That was my father, if you were curious. I’m sorry you had to see that,” Malcolm breaks the silence first.

“Don’t be,” JT says to hide his surprise, because the profiler didn’t seem to notice him come in. “Family is rough, I get it.”

“Mine seems determined to turn me grey before I hit forty,” Malcolm smiles, but it’s a sad expression. Full of shame and self-deprecation. “Sometimes I think about moving to another country. Changing my name.”

“Probably wouldn’t help much.” JT approaches the desk carefully. “You got a way of stirring shit up everywhere you go.”

Malcolm nods, his eyes distant. He’s not really looking at anything, just staring into the middle-distance, like he’s reading something in his head.

“How did it go?” The kid eventually asks, levering himself to his feet with effort. He asks like he already knows.

JT looks at the floor and drops his shoulders. He isn’t sure if he really managed to shut it all out of his head for a few blessed moments, or if that was all bullshit. It’s all still there, too close. Alive, like a monster lurking beneath quiet waters. Waiting for him to slip.

“Not good,” he finally manages to say. 

He thinks there’s no possible way he could describe how terribly, hopelessly  _ not good _ it really was, and he’s glad for that too. Secretly relieved that whatever Gil said to the kid, it was enough to keep him away. Far removed from run-down houses that smell like death and tiny, starving bodies that don’t live to see the hospital.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Malcolm murmurs, leaning on his desk like he’s too tired to hold himself upright anymore. 

JT stares at him, wondering if the kid really can read minds or he’s just too observant for his own good. 

“I’m not,” he says plainly. “Honestly, I’m so fucking glad you weren’t. That’s the kinda shit you don’t get outta your head for anything.”

Malcolm looks away and doesn’t say anything, doesn’t agree or disagree or react. His hair is still perfectly gelled, but a single strand is threatening to break free, to fall into his face. He doesn’t seem to notice. 

“I’m glad you weren’t there,” the cop repeats to himself, feeling defeated. “But I guess… I still kinda wish you were.” 

“After everything I said to you… you still wanted me there?” Malcolm breathes it aloud like he can’t figure it out. “Why?”

It’s a simple question, but it isn’t. It doesn’t have a simple answer. Nothing does aymore, and JT’s sick of trying to find one. To chop it all down into bite-sized pieces he can digest easily. 

He swallows hard, and starts talking.

“Back when I was just a stupid rookie… like a couple months outta the academy, I got in this fight. I was walkin’ into a quick stop right as the dude who robbed it was comin’ out, and we tussled. I got stabbed. Right here.” 

JT taps the inside of his left arm, thinking hard. “Didn’t even feel it, cause my adrenaline was dumping hard and it kinda just… faded out. Until afterwards. And of course they made me go in, get it stitched up, even though it wasn’t all that bad. Didn’t hit anything important, just bled a whole lot.”

He looks over at Malcolm in the darkness, feeling his lips curl into a smile. “And for some stupid reason, I thought about you. I wanted to call you. Talk to you, tell you all about it. Maybe brag about catching that dude; maybe make you worry about me a little. But it took me a minute you know—to remember. It’d been years, by that point. Took me a minute to remember you weren’t there anymore.”

He doesn’t want to hurt Malcolm, or try to make him guilty or angry or  _ anything _ . For the first time in ages, he just wants to be honest. 

“Same thing when I blew out my knee the first time. When I got in my first shooting and I was high as a kite on adrenaline and terror and just, _ losing my shit _ —” 

The cop cuts himself off, feeling something in his chest loosen a little, like maybe he needed this. To just unzip and  _ bleed _ . Let it come rushing out of him, like opening up a closet he’s been stuffing skeletons into for too many years. 

“When it all goes to shit, my head just… fucks with me, you know. I go right back to  _ you _ . Stupid, I know.” 

He dares to look at the kid, hoping he isn’t putting too much out there. Hoping it doesn’t come across like anything but honesty.

Malcolm is looking at him, like he forgot all about being self-conscious and guarded and defensive. Like he’s seeing JT for the first time. He’s completely silent, completely still. Blue eyes glowing in the shadows. That strand of hair finally free, hanging against his forehead. 

The cop rushes on, because he could lose his nerve at any moment, and he hasn’t said everything he needs to. Hasn’t completely signed off on a confession coming ten years too late. 

“Sometimes I think I was lucky to know you, even for a little while. I was lucky to have what I did, because it showed me what was possible. What I could feel, how hard I could love.”

He rubs his hands across his hair, shaking his head at himself. At how stupid he must sound airing all this out after so long.

“And then, some days, I think I was never lucky. I was just cursed. Because even in a few months, you ruined me for anything else. Nothing else will ever feel the way we did.”

The air goes still and silent, and JT breathes out. It’s a real, full breath for the first time all day. To say those words out loud for the first time, well... They might not mean anything to Malcolm, they might not make a difference. But they leave him feeling lighter, like he just took a thousand pounds off his shoulders and let it fall. He’s almost shaky with the feeling of lightness, emptiness. 

“I know it doesn’t mean anything, but I really am sorry,” Malcolm says softly. Like it’s tough to say it at all.

JT nods, drops his chin to his chest. “I know you are. I know. I’m sorry, too. I guess I just… I just needed to say that once. Never really figured I’d get a chance, but here we are.”

“This is hard for me too,” Malcolm confesses in a voice that’s barely a whisper. “I know you don’t believe that.”

“What do you want from me,” JT asks, because he’s spent too long dancing around it. They both have. “I need you to help me out here, kid.” 

Malcolm looks at him, his head tilted sideways like he’s so used to turning his scar away from the world that he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it anymore. He doesn’t answer. 

“Do you want—shit, do you want me to fuck off? Stop tryin’?”

“Yes,” Malcolm finally whispers. “And no.”

JT breathes and it  _ hurts. _ Like there’s something sitting on his chest that he can’t shake off and it just wants to suffocate him. He doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know where to go from here. 

There’s nothing left in him to give. He’s poured it all out, let down every wall and brought every sin to Malcolm’s altar like a sinner seeking forgiveness. 

“Please,” JT feels ashamed of himself for the way his voice cracks. Ashamed of his own vulnerability, of knowing that he’d throw himself off the roof if Malcolm asked him to, even after all this time has passed. 

“If it’s over, I get it. Fuck, I really get it. I mean, look how long it’s been. You were right, I shouldn’t have done that to myself; just waited for ten years. On hold. But for some reason I did.”

The cop doesn’t understand it himself, so it’s unfair to ask Malcolm to understand. He doesn’t know how to communicate how stuck he’s been. How lost. Drifting in limbo like a bad dream, like someday he can blink and wake up, and he just keeps waiting for that moment to come.

Malcolm straightens up, shifting. His tongue darting out across his lips like he’s too nervous to keep those little tells from showing. Lips move, fall shut again.

JT nods, his heart sinking. He tells himself this is probably for the best, because deep down, he knew coming here would be another massive waste of time. Another exercise in futility. Taking another useless run at beating his head against the walls Malcolm throws up to keep him out. 

This time, though, he thinks he’s finally said it all. Everything he possibly can. Emboldened by the kind of day that left him raw and reckless, thinking about his own mortality and the things that matter. This time he didn’t hold anything back, and if this is really the end for them, then at least JT won’t have to live with the idea that he could have done more, said more. Tried harder.

He turns away and starts for the stairs, and his eyes are burning. 

“I was attacked.”

The words come out of nowhere, stopping him in his tracks.

JT turns and stares at the kid, because it sounds like the understatement of the century. He isn’t sure if he’s hoping Malcolm will say more, or if he’s desperately hoping he won’t.

The profiler’s chin twitches, his eyes flickering in a half-hearted, aborted motion like he thought about looking at the cop but can’t find the nerve to follow through.

“Sexually assaulted.”

JT feels all the air leave his lungs in a heart-dropping rush.

“Never really liked the alternative. Rape. Sexual assault sounds a lot better, doesn’t it? I know that’s just distancing myself from it with clinical terminology, that’s what my therapist says, but it helps, right? Isn’t that the important thing?”

Malcolm is rambling on so fast that JT can’t keep up. Can’t even wrap his brain around what he’s hearing. 

“You—” He chokes off because he didn’t know how he planned to end that sentence, what he meant to say. Logical thought deserts him, leaving something ugly and wrong gaping in the center of his chest. Heavy and poisonous.

“Nobody really wants to hear that; they don’t want to know. It’s easier not to know, isn’t it?”

JT hears a sound come out of his throat, and he can’t identify it. Can’t even say if it came from him or some inhuman, wounded creature. 

“That night…” he feels his eyes moving aimlessly across the floor, like the physical movement will somehow help his broken mind piece it all together. “You left—is that—”

Malcolm stares at something far away, something that isn’t there. His face says it all.

“Jesus christ.” The cop feels senselessly lightheaded. The room is spinning. Too many little details are falling together, faster than his brain can keep up, because it all makes too much sense.

Like he senses it, reads his mind, Malcolm catches him spiraling. Rushes to interject before JT can reach the worst possible conclusion. “Nothing that happened to me was your fault. You know that, don’t you?”

JT thinks he knows a lot of things, and that definitely isn’t one of them. Not by a long shot.

“If I had come with you—”

“Don’t do that.” Malcolm’s voice changes when he says it, all jagged edges and cold steel. “Don’t.”

JT hears himself snap his mouth shut with an audible  _ click _ , like his body is overriding his own stupidity before he makes everything worse. 

He flails for solid ground, trying desperately to figure out what he can say to fix this. To make things better, or at the very least, to avoid making them so much worse.

“That’s why you never came back...” He pieces it together with some difficulty, because it’s a horrific reality that doesn’t seem real at all, and laying it out there, thinking it, saying it aloud, doesn’t help him understand it. 

“I couldn’t.”

“You were in the hospital.”

Malcolm stares at the ground. “I called Gil. He took me.”

JT’s lungs are tight and he can’t draw in full breaths. He’s sure that’s not helping his vertigo, and it’s certainly not helping Malcolm.

That’s what finally does it. Forces him to calm down, because this isn’t  _ his _ . Not his moment, not his place to panic. For fuck’s sake, he needs to hold it together because it didn’t happen to him. Nothing happened to him.

He’s spent ten years stewing in his own hurt and heartbreak, and he never stopped to think about Malcolm living through something so much worse.

“Gil, he knows.”

“Well. He was there, so yeah. He knows.”

“Is that what happened? Your scar?”

Malcolm flinches, and for the first time JT really sees the cracks. He sees that out of everything that happened to him so many years ago, that damn scar is the one thing Malcolm still has to see every day when he looks in the mirror.

“I’m sorry.” JT doesn’t just mean that for the words he spilled out carelessly. For digging at old wounds. He’s sorry for so, so much more than that. 

“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.” It’s an automatic response, like words he’s said too many times.

The cop isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to believe that. It sounds empty. 

“You don’t have to tell me anything else, not if… you don’t owe me that. Just tell me that whoever did it… they got caught.”

Malcolm looks up at him, and the saddest smile JT has ever seen flickers across his face and falls away. “We don’t live in a world that fair, JT. You know that.”

The cop almost thinks he needs to sit down before he falls down, because that dizzy rush is back full force. He tries to cover it up and fails miserably, clasping his hands together to keep them still.

“Fuck, kid. I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t tell you. How could you have known?” The words are so simple, so plain. It’s clear they’re hard to say anyway. 

“I should have...  _ known  _ something was wrong.” JT shakes his head at the floor, astounded by his own blind stupidity. “I should have known you wouldn’t just disappear like that. Not if you didn’t have to.”

“I didn’t.” Malcolm’s voice is hard again. Merciless. “I didn’t  _ have to.  _ Don’t paint me as some helpless victim in all this. I could have called you. I could have found a way to explain, but I didn’t. I let myself just… fade. I chose to get lost in it, for years. It destroyed me for  _ years _ , and I  _ let it. _ ”

The cop stares at Malcolm.

“How the fuck can you even say that?” JT is angry now too, and there’s no way in hell he’s going to let that one slide. “Something like that happens and you think, what? You’re supposed to just bounce back, and call up your old boyfriend, and ask him not to be mad?”

Malcolm stares at him, and there’s still that war in his eyes. Agony and anger.

“I’m saying that I'm not making excuses for what I did to you, and I never will.”

JT breathes out, long and heavy. Braces his palms on his knees and tries to figure out what the hell to say next. What to do. The cop in him wants to filter it all down to the facts, dig for more information. For a goal and a plan and a source to point all his rage at. 

He wants to make Malcolm understand how little blame he needs to carry. How a decade of misunderstandings just got swept off the table with a single, heavy revelation that dropped all the missing pieces into place. 

“How?” He shakes his head, overwhelmed. “How could they not get caught?”

Malcolm seems to fall in on himself, looking impossibly small in the darkness. “Why does anything happen, honestly? Earthquakes, plagues, genocides. Sometimes there just aren’t any answers.”

JT hates that answer. Hates that it’s true, that he lives in a world where senseless tragedy falls like dice on a gambling table and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. 

Most of all, he hates himself for making a single stupid, ignorant deicsion all those years ago and letting Malcolm walk out of that apartment without him. Alone. Walking into the jaws of terror and pain and all the things JT thought he was strong enough to protect him from.

Malcolm pushes on, and he’s keeping his features schooled like a pro but his voice shakes slightly, betraying him. “Jackie and Gil know, and it wasn’t really… I mean, if I had a choice they wouldn’t know. It’s a lot, to be around someone who isn’t whole.”

“Don’t say that,” JT chokes it out, swallows hard and tries again. “They care about you.”

“I know… I know they do. That makes it so much worse, doesn’t it?” Malcolm has the guts to look at him this time, but it’s not for long. It never is. “Isn’t it easier when it happens to some stranger... To someone you don’t know, or don’t care about?”

“Is that why you didn’t tell me? Were you waiting for me to stop caring about you?” It’s almost physically painful to put a voice to those words, to that concept. “Cause I got news for you dumbass… ten years didn’t do it. Ten more won’t, either.”

This time Malcolm’s the one huffing out shallow breaths, clenching his good hand in his jacket over and over like a security blanket. He doesn’t answer, and JT can’t blame him. Thinks that if either of them had a clue the kind of bombshells they were about to drop on each other, they might not have showed up tonight at all. 

“Fuck it,” the cop straightens up, wiping his clammy palms on his jeans and trying to shake out his nerves. The heaviness sitting in his gut like a bowling ball. “I don’t fucking care, okay? I know you did everything you could to push me away, and you got some crazy reasons for that. I get it.”

He takes a hesitant step forward, freezing immediately when Malcolm tenses up. It hurts to see. Hurts to think that maybe Malcolm doesn’t even want him here. That he’s scared of him.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you, and I’m sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am. But mostly... I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.”

“You’re here now,” Malcolm says in a shaky voice. “You’re always here when I need you.”

That almost does him in. 

They’re a few steps away from each other, and it feels like miles. Watching Malcolm stand there, looking impossibly small in that damn coat… it nearly breaks JT. The air feels alive around them, loaded with meaning. Like whatever happens next could change the future. 

“Please…” JT breathes. “Can I touch you?”

“ _ Please _ .” Bright’s blue eyes shine on him like forgiveness.

JT closes the distance without stopping to think about it. He clutches the kid against his chest with all the strength he has in him, and right now he thinks that’s not much. 

Malcolm twists his hand up in the cop’s jacket and a broken sob rips against the leather. 

If JT’s being honest, he thinks he might be crying too. He squeezes his eyes shut so tight it hurts, and finds he doesn’t even care if he is. All he can think about is the thin body in his arms, warm and alive and  _ needing him _ , the same way he’s needed Malcolm for ten years and couldn’t admit it. 

He isn’t sure how long they stand there, holding onto each other in the dark. Rows of empty seats stretching away behind them, a silent, ghostly audience. 

He doesn’t care. Doesn’t give a rat’s ass if the whole world is watching or not a single soul. Ten years ago he let Malcolm down without even knowing it. He’s not the type to make blind promises, but he makes a new one against Malcolm’s hair, listening to the kid cry in silence. 

It’s never going to happen again.

**.**

They’re both senselessly exhausted, emotion and tears taking the stubbornness out of them. Draining willpower and hurt from their bones like a dripping faucet. A decade of hurt and loneliness ripped out of them tonight, like a dam that finally burst, and they have nothing left to give. 

JT is empty. Losing all the hurt and anger and vibrating nerves. He’s content for now to sit in Malcolm’s company, basking in the warmth of his proximity. 

The profiler is sitting on his desk like he doesn’t have the energy to stand up, and JT leans against it beside him. One arm slung over thin shoulders because he can’t stand the thought of losing contact completely. He’s just trying to take it all in because he never thought he’d get this chance again. Never imagined that he could sit here, soaking up the kid’s body heat. Floating. 

“What now?” Malcolm’s voice echoes, quiet in the emptiness. Exhausted. 

JT reaches over and takes Malcolm’s good hand in his own. 

“Who knows.” 

He rubs his thumb over pale skin, wondering at whatever twist of fate led them to this moment. To a touch he was once so sure he’d never feel again in his lifetime. 

“And who cares. I’ve got you.”

**.**

They part ways sometime around midnight. JT is reluctant to let Malcolm go, and not in that young, lovestruck kind of way he remembers. Instead he feels that absolute certainty in his gut that if he lets Malcolm get into that cab by himself, it’s really the last time he will ever see him. More certain than he’s ever been before, and it’s foolish. Irrational, because he finds himself nursing that same fear every time he watches the kid walk away.

This time, it’s different.

Malcolm’s eyes linger through the window, and the cop feels his chest hurt. 

JT watches the cab leave, because he can’t do anything else. Can’t ask the kid for more right now, not when he’s already given him so much. Answers he didn’t deserve. The kind of open, disarming honesty he was so sure he’d never hear. 

He’s spent, and it’s bone-deep. Like he’s let too much emotion flow through him and it’s left him hungover and empty. He knows he survived the kind of day that would destroy any man, and topped it off by having one of the hardest conversations he’s ever had in his life… but right now, he’s grateful. Thankful for every second, because for the first time… he thinks he really does know where they go from here.

When the cab disappears he walks back to his car in a haze, and sits there for too long before he remembers to turn the keys in the ignition. It’s a struggle to keep his hands on the wheel. To focus on the road, to park. His mind is churning so fast that he feels like he could get lost in it. 

When fumbling hands finally get him through his own front door, he makes a beeline for the bedroom. For the bedside table. He shuffles through stray .40 rounds, watches and half-empty bottles of cologne. He feels that old anxiety start building up at the idea that he lost something important, but it doesn’t last long. After a brief search, he finds what he’s looking for. 

He picks it up, holds it in his palm under dim yellow light from the bedside lamp. 

It’s an old bottle cap. Still shiny silver and rifled at the edges. A little castle symbol on the front, worn down by his thumb over the years. 

JT grips it in his hand hard, relishing in the mild pain as the sharp edges dig into his palm. He holds it in his hand and sinks into his mattress, riding out the crippling, soul-deep hurt washing over him. Threatening to drown him. He lays right where he lands and simply breathes. 

He falls asleep that way, still dressed with the lights on. Thinking about second chances and everything he’s still not brave enough to say. 


	9. sciamachy

**.**

**sciamachy**

{sha-ma-shi} Italian

(n.) a battle against imaginary enemies, fighting your shadow

**.**

It’s not even 8 o’clock in the morning, and all hell has broken loose at the precinct. 

JT walks into the bullpen to the sound of raised voices. One is Gil’s, and he can tell that much all the way from the elevators. The other he doesn’t recognize. 

Dani is standing a respectful distance from Gil’s office, one hip propped against a desk as she eavesdrops, not even bothering to pretend otherwise. She shakes her head and shrugs at him as JT walks by, indicating she doesn’t have any more of a clue what’s happening than he does.

By now, the cop can make out the words, and that’s not nearly as comforting as he’d hoped it would be. 

“I’m telling you, my boy is missing, and you’re not taking me seriously!”

An older man in a suit jacket is standing in Gil’s office, his face red, his beard bristling. He’s all salt-and-pepper hair and sharp blue eyes, and he seems oddly familiar for reasons JT can’t place. It’s disconcerting to say the least, because he knows for a fact he’s never seen him before. 

Gil is leaning over his desk, both hands propped on the stacks of paperwork that don’t seem all that important in light of current events. He looks angry, too. 

“I’m saying, you’re not allowed to be within a hundred feet of this building, Martin. I could have you arrested just for being here!”

“What was I supposed to do? Nobody is listening!”

“Boss…?” JT speaks up from the doorway, his eyes darting uncertainly between the two men. He’s trying to figure out if he needs to step in, to intervene before the situation gets even more heated.

Gil holds up a hand to JT, his lips pressed into a stern line. He doesn’t get a chance to tell him to stand down.

“And who the hell are you?” The stranger rounds on him, fury sparking in blue eyes. “Another useless cop, no doubt. Do you work with my son? Because you should be out there, looking for him—”

“Martin!” Gil sounds exasperated. “We had contact with Malcolm last night. I don’t know where this is coming from—”

“He’s missing?” JT blurts it out, not stopping to think it through. To weigh the pros and cons of butting into a conversation that he probably shouldn’t have intruded on in the first place. 

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Martin growls, glaring at Gil. “He was supposed to come see me this morning, and now he’s not answering his phone. He’s not at his apartment—”

“You’re not supposed to be going by his apartment, either,” Gil tries to interject. It’s useless. 

“I’m going to find my son, and you’re not going to stop me!” Martin shoves an angry finger into Gil’s face. “You shouldn’t have had him anywhere near this case to begin with, and now it’s your negligence, your  _ ineptitude _ , that got him into this mess!”

“Gil,” JT tries to interrupt, because his stomach just went straight through the floor and he feels almost ill from the drop. “Tell me he’s here.”

Gil opens his mouth, reconsiders it. Tips his head as he rethinks his answer. “I haven’t heard from Malcolm today.” That hand goes up again, a useless attempt to calm down both men. “That doesn’t mean he’s missing, alright? You need to calm down, both of you.”

“I’m telling you, he is! He’s gone, dammit.”

JT digs his phone out of his pocket, feeling anxious all over again, feeling all the nerves welling up.

He hits dial on Malcolm’s name, lifts the phone to his ear and listens to the line go straight to voicemail. His heart rate amps up a notch and he can’t talk himself down this time. It feels too much like déjàvu, like history repeating itself in the click of a dead phone line that doesn’t ring like it should.

“You’re the one who wanted to play father to him, to try to take my place,” Martin is ranting on. “And you drag him into a human trafficking ring, of all things. They probably have him right now!”

JT stares at the side of Martin’s head—Martin Whitly, Malcolm’s  _ father _ —and feels puzzle pieces click into place. He thinks about the conversation he overheard last night in Malcolm’s classroom, and wonders if what Martin is saying is true. That Malcolm had any plans at all to see him that morning, or any other time. Somehow, he doubts it.

“Martin, you need to leave.” Gil glares across his desk. “This doesn’t concern you, not anymore.”

“How dare you!” Martin is almost screaming now. Mania shines bright in his eyes, and JT thinks it’s the only familiar thing about him. The only common thread he’s been able to see that ties the Malcolm he knows to this man.

“Get out!” 

Gil’s voice rises, and the crowd of cops trickling into the bullpen aren’t even pretending to ignore what’s happening anymore. JT looks over his shoulder and sees a handful of them edging closer, ready to step in and drag Martin out, kicking and screaming if necessary.

Martin sets his jaw, and for a heartstopping moment JT gets the distinct impression that he’s thinking about throwing a punch. Doing something crazy. The moment passes quickly, and then the older man turns on his heel and storms away.

JT looks at Gil, wordless, and then turns to rush after Martin.

“Mr. Whitly,” he calls out, unsure what he’s doing. Or why. He just knows he needs answers.

“Doctor,” Martin snaps, turning angrily. “That’s  _ Doctor Whitly _ to you.”

“What happened,” JT demands, uncaring that he’s looking Martin Whitly in the eyes for the first time. The man who, as far as he knows, is responsible for so much of Malcolm’s heartache. “Why do you think he’s missing?”

“Believe it or not, I know my son.” Martin shifts, his jaw working furiously. “Regardless of what that bastard says, regardless of what  _ anyone  _ says. I know him better than anyone.”

“What. Happened.” JT repeats seriously, silently begging the other man to find clarity, to find rationale. To just open his mouth and give him something useful. 

“He wouldn’t miss class. Not for anything, except maybe a case. And he’s not here either, and he  _ shouldn't be _ here in the first place. This is too much for him, after everything he’s been through.”

JT wants to snap, to throw it in Martin’s face that Malcolm clearly doesn’t want him around. Neither does anyone else, for that matter. He struggles to stay calm. 

“Why this case?” He pushes coldly, needing answers. “What is it about  _ this  _ case, exactly?” 

Martin scoffs at him. “Of course. You ignorant assholes wouldn’t have the first clue.”

_ Okay then, _ JT thinks. Martin and Malcolm have that in common too. They’re both cryptic and infuriating. “If you don’t have anything else to share,” he glares, losing his patience. “Then you really need to leave.”

“Find him,” Martin says, leaning in close. His voice dropping like a threat. “Find my boy.”

And with that he’s gone. Too impatient to wait for the elevators, he yanks open the door to the stairwell and disappears inside. 

JT watches him go, and that sick, sinking feeling washes over him. It leaves him feeling cold, and it’s too familiar.

He storms back into Gil’s office, trying to hold onto himself. To logic, to plans. To gathering all the facts before he absolutely loses his mind, because jumping to conclusions isn’t going to do him any good right now.

“Where is he,” he demands as he pushes through the door. “Tell me you know.”

“I don’t,” Gil admits, shaking his head. Letting a breath out that betrays his stress.

“That’s not gonna cut it for me.” JT shakes his head. 

“We’ll find him, alright? We don’t know for sure that anything happened to him.”

JT thinks he  _ does  _ know. He thinks he knew it last night, watching Malcolm leave in that cab. He knew it in his gut. It’s that same sickening sense of déjàvu, like knowing something terrible has happened without being able to put a name on it. To pin it down, to understand.

“He’s not answering his phone.” 

“I know.” Gil rubs his forehead, pulling out his cell like checking it now will make any kind of difference. “I’ve called him a dozen times. I was hoping to get a hold of him before Martin came storming in here.”

“Well he seemed pretty damn convinced something happened. Why? Did you even hear him out?”

“There’s more to this than you know, JT,” Gil warns with a dark look.

“Yeah, you keep saying shit like that.” JT is cracking, fraying at the edges. Thinks anyone could see it at this point if they looked at him hard enough. “Things have changed. I know more than you think. I talked to him last night; went to the university.”

Gil gives him a strange look. He’s about to say more, but Dani peeks her head in to interrupt.

“Don’t you have a restraining order against that guy?” 

“We need a plan,” JT charges ahead, because at this point he really doesn’t give a damn about Martin Whitly. “We need to find him.”

“We will.”

“How?”

“I’ll send a squad car by his place,” Gil shakes his head, and JT feels bad for a moment that he’s piling it on. Making everything worse in his panic. “Double-check, just in case. If he had a bad night, maybe he just… needs his space right now.” He doesn’t sound like he has much faith in his own words, even as they leave his lips.

“Plainclothes did a sting on a bar on the west end,” Dani chimes in. “One of the places on the DA’s hot list. They made a stop on a guy rumored to be working for DeSantis. Pulled $500k out of the van.”

“Last night?” JT looks at her incredulously. “Why didn’t they call us in?”

Dani’s shoulders pull up defensively. “After the day we had, they figured it could wait, I guess? I don’t know.”

“So we hit his safehouse,” the cop shakes his head, working through it out loud. “He shoots up his own product to keep us from getting our hands on victims, potential witnesses. We nab half a mil off the guy, drag in one of his mules… Of course he’s gonna be gunning for us.” 

“He’s been playing it cool so far. We had no indication that he would try anything,” Gil is trying to be patient. “We still don’t.”

“Yeah, but it makes sense right? That he would target us? Try to get leverage, fight back?” 

“You’re jumping to conclusions, kid. You know better.”

JT does know, but he tells himself that this isn’t just cop work anymore. It’s more than focusing on the job, making battle plans and taking bites out of the elephant. One thing at a time. It’s  _ Malcolm _ .

“We have a list of places DeSantis owns, or runs,” he reasons out loud, swallowing hard. “We can start there. Check ‘em one at a time, pull in boots to help.”

“That’s like, a hundred,” Dani protests from the doorway. 

“Both of you, calm down!” Gil’s voice notches up again, indicating he’s nearing the end of his patience. “Before we go jumping the gun on this, we need to have something concrete, and right now we don’t.”

“Why would Malcolm just disappear, then?” Dani plays devil’s advocate, and she’s a lot more subtle about it than JT would have been. “Why would he fall off the face of the earth without telling somebody?”

Feeling validated, JT turns and raises an eyebrow at Gil. Daring him to answer.

“Detective Powell,” Gil says evenly. “Give us a minute, will you?”

Dani looks relieved to be dismissed, and she doesn’t protest before dipping out of the room and pulling the door shut behind her.

“Tell me,” JT demands, stepping towards the desk. “Just fucking tell me, for the love of god.”

Gil looks at him. Studying his face. “Did you two take care of things? Handle your business?” It’s a loaded question.

JT huffs out a frustrated breath. Thinks about holding Malcolm tight to his chest in a dark auditorium late at night. He thinks about the way it feels to get your heart ripped out and then shoved back into place, bleeding, but finally whole again. 

“Yeah,” he says simply. “We did a whole lot more than that.”

Gil nods, and he looks relieved. It settles over him, his shoulders slumping. Head drooping briefly towards his chest. “Thank christ,” he says quietly. “That’s gonna make this a lot easier.”

“Make what easier?” JT takes another step, until it’s just the space of that desk between him and Gil. “What haven’t you told me?”

When Gil isn’t immediately forthcoming, JT shakes his head. “Gil, I get it. But Malcolm told me… I guess, he told me what happened. Most of it, I think, but it’s hard to tell with him. I know there’s more to this. I can see it, because I ain’t a profiler, and I ain’t a genius, but I sure as hell ain’t stupid either.” 

“Why don’t you sit down,” Gil suggests, looking defeated. It’s a futile attempt at de-escalation and they both seem to know it.

This time, JT doesn’t have any intention of sitting down. “Martin said he shouldn’t be on this case, and I know you think that too. But you brought him here anyway.”

“Not quite.” Gil’s shoulders tense up again, and he looks away as he shakes his head at himself. “I let him talk me into it. Like an idiot.”

“He wanted this case?” JT feels his head spinning, trying desperately to process. “Why?”

“Because it’s Malcolm. And he’s hard-headed. Wanted to prove to me he was over it. I think he wanted to prove it to himself, too. He wants to help, and this is… this is personal for him.”

“Because of what those kids went through,” JT reasons it out, chooses his words carefully. “Is that it?”

Gil looks up at him. It’s clear he’s fighting a war with himself, struggling with the delicate balance of managing JT’s desperation with how protective he is of Malcolm. 

“There’s more. Fuck, I know there’s more.” JT feels angry at himself, because for all his grandiose claims, he feels pretty slow right now. Like he should have been able to put all this together a long time ago. Maybe he just chose not to see it.

When he gets nothing back, JT starts to pace. Three steps forward and back in the small space. “He told me about… he said he called you that night. After it happened.”

Gil nods again, and he’s waiting too. For JT to figure it out himself, because it wouldn’t be betraying Malcolm that way. It wouldn’t leave him on the line for breaking the kid’s trust in the most unforgivable way.

“Why did he call you,” JT wonders aloud. “What happened that made him call  _ you _ ?”

“I think you already know.”

JT feels it. Deep in his gut, he feels it, the same way he feels like something horrible has happened to Malcolm. The same way he felt it that day, ten years ago, when Malcolm was suddenly gone from his life without a word. Without warning. 

“It wasn’t college kids,” he half-guesses. But it’s not a guess. It’s instinct, the same one he’s been ignoring because it’s easier that way. “It wasn’t some fucked up frat party turned gang-rape.”

Gil winces a little at the harsh terminology, but he looks relieved again. Like JT is finally on the right track. “No,” he says simply. “It wasn’t.”

JT shakes his head, because he thought he was done being blindsided. Thought the hardest pill to swallow was Malcolm’s tearstained confession in the dark. He’d hoped, maybe foolishly, that he already knew the worst of it. 

“He fought back, you know.” Gil mumbles, like it’s tough to say aloud. Like it happened yesterday and not years in the past. “He fought like hell.”

JT thinks of that massive scar, running across Malcolm’s face like a badge of honor. He knows it’s true. It’s the kind of scar warriors wear, he thinks. With pride and shame and survival in their blood. 

“He fought hard enough that… that he probably saved himself. As harsh as it sounds, he wasn’t going easy.”

“That... sounds like him,” JT chokes out, because it’s hard to breathe. Hard to imagine the hell Malcolm really went through. To survive, with that battle scar, that horrific limp. 

“He’s always been a fighter,” Gil says fondly. “One of the many reasons I’m proud of him.”

“He said they never got caught,” the cop says slowly. “That’s why, isn’t it? They weren’t stupid drunk college kids. They were traffickers.”

Gil nods, and it’s a simple admission but it crushes JT to the core. He hears himself breathe, and he can’t believe his chest is working well enough to do that. To breathe, to function. To fill up his lungs and keep him upright.

“You have no idea how long I spent trying,” Gil says, and JT hears it. The guilt, the self-loathing, the shame of a hard-fought defeat. “It ate me up, for a long time. I felt like I let him down. I guess it still does, honestly.”

JT thinks he knows that feeling all too well. 

“Gil,” he says. Waits until the other man lifts pained eyes to meet his. “We can’t let him down again.”

The lieutenant nods, and a harsh, agonized sound leaves his lips. “We won’t.”

A knock sounds at the office door, and JT holds Gil’s eyes until the lieutenant lifts his head and beckons through the glass.

Dani’s voice carries from the door. “We got word that DeSantis’ private plane just landed in New York,” she says somberly. “This doesn’t look good.”

Gil frowns. “No, it sure doesn’t.”

“We’ve got a ship due to leave the harbor today with his name on half the cargo.” JT runs a hand over his hair, feeling nauseous. “His plane gassed up for a take off to fuckin’ China, probably, and we’re idiots to think he ain’t wise to that warrant. We don’t have the resources for this.”

Gil’s eyes flash, hard as steel. “There’s three of us, right? We make it work.” 

**.**

JT has every intention of flooring it to the docks, putting that creaky old Crown Vic through its paces, but he vastly underestimated New York traffic at 10 AM. He’s ready to scream in frustration by the time he makes his turn-off.

They split up, calling in favors from every precinct in the city to make their move. Gil went straight for DeSantis’ office building uptown, while Dani headed to the airport. JT’s covering what he personally considers to be their coldest lead—what millionaire in his right mind would be hitching a ride on a freighter bound for Cuba?—but he’s grateful to have something that feels like direction. A solid course of action, because he knows it in his bones. 

If they can get DeSantis on the hook, they’ll find Malcolm. He’s positive.

His mind spins backwards, into the clouded past. Waking up alone and  _ feeling it _ , that horrible, soul-deep certainty that tragedy had come knocking at his door. Maybe he hadn’t been as cognizant of his own intuition back then, hadn’t trusted it. Learned to recognize it when it tugged at him like a bad itch. 

He knows better now. He’s older and wiser and tougher, and he tells himself that’s going to be the difference this time. The nudge that tips the scales back in his favor.

It’s easy to tell himself to focus. To know that’s what’s necessary right now, when they’re down to the wire and closing in. It’s not as simple to make it happen. To clear his mind and focus when all he wants to do is stew in it, get lost in all the heavy revelations that have come crashing in over the past twenty-four hours. Shaking him to his core.

The next time he gets within arms reach of Malcolm, he swears to himself that he’s going to grab onto that stupid kid and never let him go again. 

The gas pedal sinks towards the floor as he reaches a hand up and adjusts his rear-view mirror. Tracks the dark SUV that’s been following him for too many blocks to suggest coincidence. 

“I’m being tailed,” he says without preamble when Gil picks up his phone. “I need an ETA on those squad cars.”

“Can you tell who it is?”

JT shakes his head, even knowing the other man can’t hear that through the phone. “Blacked out. No front plates.”

“Probably means you’re on the right track,” Gil muses. “Circle the block. Wait for backup. Don’t get out of your car, you hear me?”

JT sets his jaw, glaring through the mirror at the dark windshield behind him. “Don’t worry about me,” he grumbles. “Just go hook that fucker up before he beats feet outta the country.” 

“I’m almost to his office. Don’t do anything stupid, you hear me?”

“No promises.” 

JT hangs up his phone, taking an abrupt right turn through the warehouses. He’s close to the docks, and that’s infuriating too. 

How much precious time is he going to waste? Trying to lose what is probably, at best, a distraction? Trying to keep him from reaching his destination, buying time for that freighter to haul out. Taking whatever’s on board with it, escaping into international waters and out of their reach.

The cop keeps an eye on his unwelcome company, feeling something cold settle into his bones. 

Resolve. Training and preparation and the readiness so familiar to soldiers. To dusty fields and empty roads and warfield ruins. An old friend, sitting silently with him, a hand on his shoulder. Telling him to do what he needs to do right now, here in the ugly moment, and think about the consequences later. 

He reaches down as he drives and unsnaps the leather catch on his holster. 

Smelling burnt rubber, he takes another turn, and another. Winding through the commercial buildings, through streets and alleys mostly bare of traffic. Another quick turn-off, and suddenly that SUV is gone. 

Frowning, he lets his eyes dart up. Again and again, checking for the vehicle and finding nothing. He relaxes for a moment. 

Maybe that’s what did it. Maybe that’s what really got him. A single, lethal moment of inattention.

His eyes are fixed on his empty rear-view mirror. Trying to work out if he really managed to lose his tail, or if they just got tired of chasing him around and gave up.

The next time he looks up, there’s a flash of movement to his left. Bright headlights and a massive black grill hurtling towards him. Instinctively, without thought or reason, he drops a hand to the gun on his hip. Feels familiar metal form under his palm.

It’s the only thing he has time for before the SUV hits him. There’s a noise like ripping metal. Glass explodes around him and tires screech, deafening. 

Everything goes black. 


	10. fanaa

**.**

**fanaa**

{fan-ah} Arabic

(n.) destruction of the self; “destroyed in love”

**.**

It’s almost two in the morning and every light in the dorm room is on. Baskets of laundry sit under the window, neglected after a trip to campus laundromat, and dirty dishes are piled up in the sink because JT hasn’t had the heart to focus long enough to get them done. 

JT’s one week suspension is drawing to a close, and the dorm is a mess. He doesn’t think the two of them are in much better shape, either.

“It’s not like I can just turn it off,” JT’s voice is a few notches too loud for the late hour, frustration coursing through his veins. Making his head throb and his teeth ache.

“I’m not asking you to!” Malcolm throws his hands in the air, half-laughing, but it’s not funny. Nothing is.

“I’m dealing with it, alright? I have the gym, I have class—”

“And that’s great.” Malcolm isn’t trying to sound condescending, but every syllable still sounds too personal. “That’s healthy, I’ve told you that before. I’m just saying, maybe talking to someone, a professional, could help—”

“You know I can’t afford that.” JT throws his phone down on the bed, exasperated. “Shit, I can barely afford to live in this dump on ramen and PB&J.”

“There’s a student peer support group on campus,” Malcolm pushes. “They offer low-cost counseling, or free. You have options.” It’s a step up from the kid just offering to pay for it out of pocket, because that suggestion came up earlier and needless to say, it didn’t go over well. 

JT curses, scrubbing his hands over his face. “I can’t do that, Malcolm. You know I can’t walk in there, and look right in the eye of some dumbass I sit next to in biology, and tell them…  _ what _ , I need anger management?”

“What’s the alternative?” Malcolm is angry, frustrated, seething. Because they’ve been beating this dead horse, going around in circles all night and they’re both too damn stubborn to budge. “One more strike, and you’re expelled. Whether it’s self-defense, or straight-up not your fault. I don’t want to see that happen; don’t you get it?”

JT grinds his teeth together and his jaw aches along with his skull. His entire body aches. “I’m just gonna lay low. Mind my business. I can do this.”

“I know you can.” Malcolm has one hand on his hip, shaking his head in defeat as he looks at JT with sad eyes. “I know. All I’m asking you to do here, is just accept some help. Why are you so afraid of that?”

“Because—!” JT growls aoud, his patience too thin. Too strained to the breaking point. “I don’t know! It’s just not me, okay? That ain’t ever been me.”

“So you’re going to let your pride be the reason you never finish your degree?”

“Who needs this fucking degree…” Defensive, JT storms into the small kitchen. “Not like anyone’s gonna hire me, anyway.”

“Don’t say that. You just don't know what you want to do yet. There’s nothing wrong with that, either.”

“ _ You _ know.” JT yanks a beer out of the fridge, pointing it at Malcolm while he hunts for the bottle opener. “You got your whole damn life planned out.”

Malcolm’s eyes soften, and he’s doing that infuriating thing again. Cracking JT’s brain open and peering inside, poking and prodding at things he shouldn’t be. Reading between the lines. 

“Why does that scare you?”

“It doesn’t,” JT snaps, and it’s a bad lie. Because Malcolm's casual assessment is entirely too accurate for comfort. “I just… who the fuck knows. Wherever you end up, it’s gonna work out for you. Shit  _ always _ works out for people like you.”

“People like me,” Malcolm repeats slowly. A statement as much as a question. An opportunity to elaborate.

JT huffs, his free hand clenching into a fist on the countertop. “You got the world on a platter, kid. You got rich family; you’re a  _ hell  _ of a lot smarter than I am—”

“That’s not true,” Malcolm shakes his head, and he’s laughing again. Dry and disbelieving, like he’s at a loss with the absurdity of it all. “Our brains work differently. That’s it. You can't measure it evenly across the board. Life’s not about how fast you can read, or how well you take a test.”

JT hunches his shoulders and doesn’t answer, because he’s as hurt, as defensive as he is angry. Feeling attacked and firing back without meaning to. It’s a cycle that lives inside him, rotten and thriving like a cancer, and he doesn’t know how to break it. How to turn off the parts of himself that can’t accept help. That can’t ask for it.

“Going to therapy doesn’t mean you’re weak,” Malcolm repeats it for the tenth time that night. “It doesn’t make you a head-case.”

“Kinda hypocritical, right?” Bringing that up is a dick move, and he knows it. Regrets it almost as soon as it comes out of his mouth. 

Malcolm tenses up a little, but he sets his jaw and holds eye contact. Like he knows JT doesn’t mean it like it sounds. “That’s different,” he replies slowly. “And I’m not ashamed if people know that I see a therapist. I’m  _ not _ .”

JT decides to keep his mouth shut after that because he doesn’t trust himself. He doesn’t have the self-control he wishes he did, and he already feels like shit for letting this whole argument spin out of control like it did. 

“I know you, JT.” Malcolm’s voice has gone soft again, and that’s almost worse than the shouting. More effective. “You’re not a violent person.”

JT stares down at his beer and thinks the kid is dead wrong. Thinks he’s proven it too many times, and he doesn’t know how to change himself. How to rewrite his own code to hold on to everything he cares about.

Malcolm isn’t giving up, because he never does. He doesn’t know how to quit, it’s not in him. 

“You’re coming from a place where violence was the answer, that’s it. And I know it’s hard for you now, to be back here, where things are different. You’re going through an adjustment period.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” JT breathes. He meant it to sound angrier than it comes out. 

“Of course I don’t,” Malcolm sighs, pausing on the other side of the kitchen island. “I’ve never been to war. That doesn’t mean I can’t try to help. Try to understand, if you’ll let me.”

JT feels his shoulders heave as he battles with the ugly emotions in his chest. His eyes flutter shut and he squeezes his lids together until they burn with the pressure.

“I’m sorry this got so out of hand,” Malcolm apologizes softly when the other man doesn’t answer. Doesn’t give him anything to work with. “Do you... need some space? I can go to my place for the night.”

All the parts of himself that JT hates—pride, defensiveness, rage—want to lash out. To tell Malcolm to go ahead and leave, like that will somehow feel like a victory. Like a fight he came out on top of. 

But the parts of him that are scared, flailing, lost… want him to turn around and hug the kid and tell him the truth. That it doesn’t matter what they say to each other in the heat of the moment, because the last thing he wants in the world is to spend the night alone. 

Instead of saying any of that, he stands right where he is and doesn’t say a damn word. Doesn’t even turn around to look at Malcolm, because if he does, he has no idea which words are really going to come out of his mouth.

Mired too deeply in his own foolishness, in his pride, to claw his way out in time, he listens as Malcolm picks up his keys. Shrugs into his jacket and heads for the door. 

The kid pauses there, the door creaking. He doesn’t say anything, and JT can feel his eyes on him. Waiting, maybe begging for him to say something. 

The door creaks shut and Malcolm’s comforting presence, a balm on open wounds, is gone. Just like that.

JT drops his chin to his chest and breathes out, loud in the silence. His chest hurts. He picks up his beer and drinks until it stops.

**.**

JT blinks, and his head is throbbing like there’s a bass drum kicking in his skull. At first he isn’t even sure if he managed to open his eyes at all, because there’s nothing there. Pitch blackness. 

He latches onto the trail end of a memory he tried to stuff away, banish into the shadowed corners of his mind. Locked into a vault he doesn’t like to visit, because it tastes like regret and longing and loss. Mistakes he made out of pride and stupidity. A reminder that he was never perfect, that he never really treasured Malcolm while he had him. Not the way he wanted to. 

If he’s being honest, he hates himself for that. For spending a single moment feeling angry and acting stupid and letting second chances slip through his fingers. 

Finding his way back to the present is a struggle. Separating out sensations and thoughts that are still real, tangible, anchored in the here and now. 

Everything hurts. That’s his main takeaway from his slow self-assessment. He’s sore down to his bones and for a long beat, he can’t remember why. Can’t figure out what happened that left him here, blinking in the dark. 

That disorientation only lasts until he tries to move, and he sucks in a harsh breath of pain. Maybe pain wasn’t the word he was looking for, after all. Every nerve ending in his body  _ sings _ as he tries to shift, lighting up like a fireworks show. Leaving him sweating and out of breath.

There’s something tight around his wrists, cold and unyielding. It takes him too long to recognize what handcuffs feel like, to feel out the wide line of metal pressing into his spine. His shoulders ache as he presses back against it, trying to get enough leverage to twist his hands and grasp at it with limited mobility. He figures it’s a beam of some kind. His wrists are both pulled back, and he’s cuffed to it. 

His brain kick-starts as the alarm sets in, that razor-sharp hyperawareness that tells him this is all wrong. Dangerous. The worst possible scenario come to life.

The sudden sound is almost painful to his ears when a heavy metal door screeches in the darkness, letting in a sliver of reflected light. Footsteps on metal. More than one pair. 

Next there comes a click, and JT blinks hard as the light stabs into his eyes like needles. 

“Look at that. He’s awake! You’re a tough son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you?”

A hand lands across his face, hard, and he jerks away from it. His pulse pounding in his ears as he blinks away his disorientation. His eyes are starting to adjust, and he squints at the unfamiliar face above him. Lit at exaggerated angles by the single bulb that’s still swinging from a chain somewhere overhead. 

“Welcome back, handsome.” A smug face is too close to his own, salt-and-pepper hair slicked back. Sharp features and tan skin. A man too easy to recognize from glossy photographs pasted up on endless whiteboards.

“DeSantis,” JT grinds out, and his throat hurts. His lip stings, warning his overtaxed brain that he didn’t come out of that wreck entirely unscathed after all. 

The man in front of him looks entirely too pleased to be recognized, his chest puffing up with satisfaction as he smiles. 

“Got it in one. Guess I’m becoming something of a local celebrity around your parts, aren’t I? You’ve certainly done your fair share of stalking me. NYPD’s been all up in my business these days.”

JT yanks at his cuffs, flexing his fingers experimentally. Willing to let DeSantis ramble as long as it keeps him distracted. 

“See, now you have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I don’t know yours. So what’s your name, little piggy?” DeSantis jabs at his shoulder with one finger, tilting his head in curiosity. “You didn’t hit that thick skull of yours too hard now, did you?”

JT presses his lips into a thin line and feels his nostrils flare.

One of DeSantis’ thugs is accommodating enough to step up, handing over the worn black badge wallet they must have pulled off of him while he was unconscious. 

“Detective JT Tarmel,” DeSantis reads aloud from JT’s wallet, pacing casually, every step exaggerated. “What is that, like a nickname? There’s no way your parents named you JT.”

The cop glares at him, his heart racing frantically, trying to figure out what to do. What to say, or if he should say anything at all. Staying silent feels like the safest bet, so in the end he does. Glaring daggers at the man digging through his shit.

“Not feeling very talkative?” DeSantis makes a face at him like poorly-feigned concern, clicking his tongue disapprovingly. “You’re gonna have to rethink that plan, big boy. You’re not exactly in a great spot to be bargaining.”

Heaving a melodramatic sigh, DeSantis turns to his men and makes a jerking motion with his head. Two of them vanish back out of that massive metal door, and JT watches them go. Trying to take it all in. 

He’s doing his best to file away faces, weapons, escape routes. Inventorying the cramped, dirty space where he finds himself, surrounded by stacks of crates and wooden boxes. He can’t be certain, but he figures they’ve got him on the ship somewhere. The same one he was so desperate to reach before it pulled anchor and headed out of New York. 

DeSantis doesn’t seem concerned by JT’s lack of communication, and he pulls out his phone, occupying himself with it while one perfectly-polished dress shoe taps in idle rhythm on the metal floor. 

They don’t keep him in suspense for long. Two of DeSantis’ men drag Malcolm in, and JT’s gut flips. 

The kid is hanging, trying to get his feet under him. Disoriented and disheveled. His right leg is dragging uselessly behind him, and the sight makes JT’s heart jump in his chest. They’ve torn the profiler’s sling off too, pulling him along by both arms and the cop can’t even imagine how painful that must be. 

“You okay, kid?” JT calls to him, his words clipped. 

Malcolm looks over at JT like he’s seeing him for the first time, and the terror in his eyes makes JT’s heart hurt. The profiler nods sluggishly, his eyes sliding around the room. Frantic, restless. Never lingering on any one thing for too long.

“This is kinda cliche, right?” DeSantis almost looks apologetic, entirely too light-hearted for the circumstances. “But it’s effective. So you behave, and he doesn’t suffer any unfortunate… consequences.” He gestures at Malcolm dismissively with the phone. “And vice versa. Everyone clear on that?”

JT doesn’t say a word, glaring daggers at the man in front of him. Daydreaming about ripping his eyeballs out of his skull with his bare hands. 

“I said—” DeSantis pulls the gun out of his waistband. He moves with a speed JT didn’t give him credit for, shoving the barrel of the gun up under the cop’s chin so hard it makes his teeth grind. “Are we clear?”

JT glares at him, fighting to keep his skull from being pushed back against the metal beam. 

“Guess not.”

There’s a nod. A rush of movement and a loud  _ crack _ that JT thinks will haunt his dreams for a long, long time to come. 

He turns his eyes in time to see Malcolm slump, spitting blood. 

“Stop!” It rips out of his throat without permission, torn free by forces he can’t control. “Fuck, fine! Whatever you say, asshole. Just don’t fucking touch him, you hear me?”

“You’ve got a dirty mouth,” DeSantis clicks his tongue. “I don’t much care for that kind of language from my hostages.”

The man standing in front of Malcolm reads some non-verbal cue and drops his fist again, hard against Malcolm’s cheek with a sick crunch. The profiler slumps under the abuse, spent and half-conscious. 

JT squeezes his eyes shut tight, breathes out through his nose. 

_ Shut up shut up shut up, _ he screams into his own brain.  _ Don’t react. Don’t say a fucking word. _

“Don’t kill him, Jesus,” DeSantis scolds the thug. “I need him in one piece long enough to be a bargaining chip. That’s how this works, huh?”

JT’s mind scrambles, grasping for solutions. For a way out. Playing through the possibilities in desperate sequence. He stares at the man in front of him, too casual like this is all meaningless. A fun game on a Friday night, a production he’s playing his part in. 

He could go for the gun. 

At least, he could if he could pull a damn hand free. Even if he could manage that, it’s a terrible idea and he knows it. Knows how badly that would go if he doesn’t make it perfect. There are so many things he could do if he wasn’t cuffed, and he can’t see any of them ending well.

He knows one thing he can’t do, with 100% certainty. He can’t watch Malcolm get hurt again. 

“You’ve made your point,” JT grinds out between clenched teeth. “What the fuck do you want?”

DeSantis dips his head at him, like he’s thinking about launching off into another infuriating diatribe about foul language while he’s got them at gunpoint, but he clearly thinks better of it.

“Nothing too difficult.” He reaches into his pocket and produces a cellphone, waving it at him like it’s a treat, and JT is just a dog he’s trying to train. “You’re going to get me my money back. All of it. And while we’re at it, let’s throw in a private jet ride out of this garbage dump of a city. Or, you know. Access to  _ my  _ jet, which is conveniently waiting for me behind a line of cop cars. I’m loving this top-notch public service.”

“Got it,” the cop bites out. He’s hoping they can get this over with quickly before he forgets how to control his temper. 

“You know the drill.” DeSantis holds up the phone as it rings, raising an eyebrow in unspoken warning. “Play nice, won’t you?” 

JT considers firing something back. Something sharp and scalding and defiant, but he thinks about Malcolm instead. Out of arm’s reach, vulnerable and wounded. He forces himself to nod, just once, as the line rings.

“This is Lieutenant Arroyo with the NYPD,” the voice comes over the line in waves of static. “Who am I speaking with?”

DeSantis’ eyebrows go up even further. Lines on his forehead wrinkling in feigned sympathy.

“It’s me,” JT begrudgingly says, playing along because he doesn’t really have another option. “I’m okay.”

A surprised silence. “You’re not alone.”

“Nope.”

DeSantis sighs dramatically, crossing his arms and keeping the phone in speaking distance. 

“What are they demanding?”

“They want the money back.” Catching the expression, JT amends, “and safe passage out of New York.”

“In exchange for?”

“I’m guessin’, me. In one piece, more or less.”

“Understandable.”

“Gil,” he tries to keep his voice strong. Steady. He looks at Malcolm, stares him dead in the eye. “Malcolm is with me.”

There’s a loaded silence buzzing on the line. A silent meaning and wordless terror.

“Okay,” Gil says at last, and his voice is tight. “Okay. We need some time. See what we can do.”

“You have two hours.” DeSantis takes over. “The clock starts now.” He hangs up the phone as Gil tries to say something else.

“One hour.” DeSantis turns to his men. “If they’re going to hit us, that’s their timeline.”

JT hears himself say something, trying to protest. DeSantis turns and the gun is back. This time, it’s pressing right into the cop’s gut.    
  


“You’d live, you know. If I shot you right here. You’d live for those two hours.”

JT grinds his teeth together hard. He stares into DeSantis’ dark eyes, daring him silently to pull the trigger already. To end it right here. He half-hopes ESU comes crashing in, hopes they throw his life straight into the garbage disposal and take this fucker out in the most painful way possible. 

“What, that doesn’t scare you? Tough guy, aren’t you.” The gun disappears briefly, and reappears in his other hand. Pointed at Malcolm. “What about him? Hm?”

JT forces himself not to look, but his heart is pounding away in his chest like he just ran a marathon. Funny how Malcolm has a way of doing that to him, under all sorts of different circumstances. 

“JT,” Malcolm says like it hurts to talk. “Don’t worry about me.”

The cop thinks that if he had that kind of power, he would have avoided making a lot of bad decisions through the course of his life. A lot of good ones, too.

“Don’t play stupid with me,” DeSantis laughs coldly. “You already showed your hand,  _ detective. _ You’re the predictable type. Big, strong, tough guy. But throw an innocent civilian into the mix, and you’ll jump on that grenade in a heartbeat, won’t you?”

DeSantis stares at him and JT stares back. He isn’t sure it’s as convincing this time. His walls are down, his weakness on display. A weakness with blue eyes and chestnut hair. One that still inexplicably holds JT’s heart in his hands. 

“Why do you give a fuck about him, anyways? You’re a cop. Do you know how much people like  _ him _ , hate people like  _ you _ ?”

JT feels himself smile, and again it’s not something he has any control over. Mirthless and cold. 

That was probably a bad move. 

For the first time, JT sees something ugly flash over DeSantis’ face. Rage and heartless intelligence turned into all the wrong things. Like he suddenly cares about this little charade. He backs away, his face twisting. 

“Maybe you just wanna see what I’ll do to him. Maybe you get off on that, huh?”

JT bites his tongue, because he can’t say a damn thing. He can’t give away that it sends his heart plummeting straight through the floor to see DeSantis advancing on Malcolm like a predator stalking his prey.

DeSantis grabs Malcolm’s chin, yanks him up to stare at his face. “He’s pretty, isn't he... In that damaged, used-up kind of way.”

That hits JT hard. He strains against the handcuffs, muscles tightening as he listens to them creak. 

Malcolm isn’t with it enough to hide his reaction, and the cop can’t blame him. The profiler recoils from the unwelcome touch, his pupils so wide his eyes are shining, almost black in the dim light. DeSantis tightens his grip, holding him in place as he leans forward. Presses his nose against Malcolm’s neck and breathes in deep.

Even from across the room, JT can hear Malcolm sucking in dry, ragged gulps of air. One bad move away from hyperventilating right there on the spot.

“You know, there’s a market for that, too,” DeSantis muses. “You’d be surprised how many people get their kicks out of roughing them up a little. Well, maybe you wouldn’t be that surprised.”

He runs his thumb over Malcolm’s scar, hard. Catching at the edges of the kid’s lip. “I don’t know who got to you first, but they clearly had the same idea.”

“Leave him alone,” JT growls, thinking it would sound a lot more dangerous if he wasn’t in these damn cuffs. “Don’t give the NYPD a real reason to come kicking down that door.”

“I don’t think they will,” DeSantis says quietly. Again, fixated, he runs his fingers over the scar on Malcolm’s face. Like it’s a piece of art he’s admiring. “It didn’t really sound like they much care what happens to either of you.”

The profiler lets out a sound that sounds like a sob. He strains uselessly against the hands that hold him up, and DeSantis laughs. Like breaking the man in front of him with a touch is nothing more than a game he’s winning. 

JT pulls. Feels his shoulders creak and scream as he asks more of them than they were meant to withstand. He’s useless and it kills him. He’s so damn useless.

DeSantis shoves Malcolm away, looking disgusted and impassive. “Let’s hope I’m wrong. Let’s hope they care if you live or die… Well. More than they care about half-a-million dollars. But I doubt it.”

If it was just him down here, JT actually thinks DeSantis might be dead right on that one. If it was just one dumb cop, stupid enough to get himself kidnapped in broad daylight, he would seriously doubt the possibility of anyone swooping in to rescue him. 

But it’s not just him. This is Malcolm they’re talking about, and he knows Gil Arroyo will move heaven and hell for that kid. In that, JT has absolute confidence. 

_ We can’t let him down again _ , he replays the words. Thinking of making that promise in Gil’s office, reading it, repeated back to him in brown eyes flashing with resolve.

“Check the cuffs,” DeSantis snaps at one of his men. “I’m already tired of this.”

And with that, he’s gone. Pulling the metal door open, his footsteps echoing on heavy stairs.

Speaking to each other in Spanish, the two men he left behind do as instructed. Shoving Malcolm onto a metal crate and cuffing his hands behind his back the same way they have JT restrained, arms trapped behind a support beam. One of them approaches JT, cranking down on his cuffs until they bite into his wrists and he grunts in pain. 

Seeming satisfied, they leave too. The door falls shut with an ominous echo, leaving the two of them alone in the light of that swinging bulb. 


	11. querencia

**.**

**querencia**

{ker-en-see-a} Spanish 

_ (n.) _ A place from which ones strength is drawn, where one feels at home; the place where you are your most authentic self

**.**

It’s a hundred degrees in that cramped room and sweat is beading on JT’s forehead, stinging as it drips into his eyes. 

As soon as the door slams shut behind DeSantis’ men with a resounding echo, JT yanks at his cuffs, hard. Curses himself for his own lack of flexibility, his strength stripped by the awkward way his shoulders are pulled behind him. 

Malcolm doesn’t move. Slumped right where he’s at, too-still.

“Talk to me, kid,” JT gasps into the silence. He’s lightheaded with adrenaline and terror. Reeling in his own mind. Spiraling in the hopelessness of their situation.

Malcolm nods his head up and down, and he’s still making those little noises like every breath is painful to him. 

“Malcolm,” JT says it a little louder, a little harsher. “Words. Fucking talk to me before I lose my mind, please.”

“What do you want me to say?”   
  


“That’ll work.” The cop forces himself to breathe. To think. “Get that big ass brain of yours working, because mine is pretty useless right now.”

“Either they make the trade or they don’t,” Malcolm says hollowly. He’s hanging against his restraints, almost bent in half, his hair brushing his knees. “That’s it.”

“That’s not it,” JT forces himself to mean it. “We can get out of here.”

“They’re going to kill us. We’ll be lucky if they don’t rape and torture us first.”

JT feels like he just got punched in the face. “So you’re giving up? That’s it? Shit, I thought I knew you better than that.”

He almost regrets the cruel words as Malcolm curls in on himself, eyes squeezing shut before they’re hidden by a curtain of hair. 

“Don’t give up on me,” he begs, and he doesn’t have the wherewithal to be ashamed by how that sounds. “For fuck’s sake,  _ don’t give up on me _ .”

Malcolm is silent for too long, leaning over like his own head is too heavy to lift. Breathing unevenly into the stillness. It makes the cop’s heart hurt, to imagine what kind of horrific memories the profiler is reliving right now. It hurts that he’s here now, thrust back into his worst nightmares.

JT works his hands behind his back, trying to twist up the handcuff chain. Thinking about watching a tweaker do the same thing one time, years ago. The fucker got the cuffs off, too, and JT wishes he’d paid a little more attention to how he did it. 

“Can you slip the cuffs,” he asks aloud, grunting as his shoulders strain at the angle. “Got any give to ‘em?”

“I don’t think so,” Malcolm answers slowly. JT doubts he’s even tried yet, but he can’t blame him. Can’t hold it against him that every trigger the kid has is rearing its ugly head to look him right in the eye. It’s shutting the profiler down completely, dragging him into his own head. 

“Try,” JT urges him. Tries to sound less panicked and stressed out than he feels. “Just try, kid.”

He listens to the chains creak across the room. Listens to Malcolm breathe in and out, like there’s glass in his throat and it hurts. 

“I’m not gonna let them touch you,” he says harshly as he gives up on his own cuffs. “I swear, kid.”

“You can’t promise that.” Malcolm’s voice is small. Heartbreaking. 

JT swallows and shuts his mouth, because he knows that’s true, too. He knows that if DeSantis comes back in and decides to do unspeakable things to Malcolm, or to him or both of them… there’s not a goddamn thing he can do right now to stop him.

“Listen,” he tries again, “just listen to me. Whatever happens, it’s both of us. We’re in this, you and me. Together. I ain’t going nowhere.”

_ I’m not leaving you alone.  _

Malcolm nods, and it looks so broken. Like the kid has given up hope completely and there’s nothing he can do to grasp onto it again. JT wishes he’d turn it into a joke, let that old razor-sharp wit and relentless optimism shine through. 

“Now. Twist the chain up until the give’s out,” JT instructs aloud, and he’s proud to hear that his own voice sounds a little stronger. Like he hasn’t given up hope yet.

Malcolm doesn’t reply, but JT can hear him, moving weakly. Slowly. The muted clink of metal on metal.

“Okay… what now?” 

JT nods, his heart jackhammering away again. “Now keep twisting.”

The profiler grunts, metal sliding and clicking. He’s sweating, his arms hunched forward in his awkward position.. There’s a strange grating sound and the chain clinks again. Malcolm curses under his breath.

“You got this, kid.” JT tries to straighten up, his shoulders singing in pain as he pulls what little slack he has against the beam. “Take it slow.”

He sits in the loaded silence, listening to Malcolm struggle and feeling like the biggest piece of shit on the planet. That this is all he can do, all he can offer. As useful as he can be.

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough,” the profiler gasps. “I don’t know if I can do it…” 

“You are.” JT doesn’t know why he believes it, or even if he does. He just knows that right now, in this moment, he needs Malcolm to believe it. “You  _ can. _ ”

Malcolm’s breathing is harsh and uneven in the silence, a pained wheeze to every one that speaks of damage the cop can’t see. 

“Malcolm,” JT calls out, and it feels like an eternity before blue eyes spark at him. Glittering in the dark. “Listen to me.” He swallows hard, shaking his head at himself. “You know why I spent ten fucking years like this? Waiting for you?”

Guilt and shame flashes bright in those beautiful eyes, and JT hates himself for a heart-stopping moment. Knowing that he’s responsible for that, in whole or in part.

“It’s because I loved you, ten years ago. And I never fucking stopped. You hear me? And I never, ever,  _ believed  _ in anybody like I believe in you.” 

Malcolm stares at him, and for a long, suspended moment, those harsh breaths go still. Evening out. JT stares back, and he hopes the kid knows that he means every word. He means it like he’s never meant anything before.

He isn’t sure if it works, because the kid goes silent after that. Malcolm’s brows drawing together in concentration, a muscle working in his jaw as he concentrates. The handcuffs clink and rattle in the heavy air. 

JT watches him, desperately praying that he can pull it together. That he can claw his way out of his own brain long enough to make this work, to give them a fighting chance. It doesn’t take as long as he figured it would. 

Malcolm lets out a sound of pain and a loud snap echoes in the small room.

“Malcolm,” JT calls urgently, his throat closing up in panic. “Fuck—Malcolm!”

The profiler grunts, twists his arm and slumps forward against the floor.

“Kid, shit—! You did it!” JT’s head is spinning with relief and shock. “Holy shit, you did it.”

Malcolm pushes himself up on his elbow, shaking. Drawing his hand into his chest. “I think those cuffs were tougher than me, after all,” he gasps, half-smiling.

JT is almost afraid to ask what that means. The cuffs are hanging from Malcolm’s opposite wrist, and he thinks he knows. “How bad is it?”

“Don’t know. Don’t much care.” Bright struggles to his feet, swaying like a stiff breeze could knock him over. He makes his way over to JT, holding onto the wall for support. 

As the kid gets closer, ducks behind him to examine JT’s cuffs, the cop can finally see the damage. Malcolm’s right hand is bloody and bent, shaking where he cradles it against his chest. His face is bleeding too, paper-white.

The cop bites his lip as he feels the kid drop to one knee with a pained grunt, working at JT’s cuffs with a shaking hand. He hates how little he can help right now, how useless he is. He knows the profiler just fucked up his good hand, and now he’s asking him for more. Asking him to push through the pain and keep trying.

“I don’t have anything,” Malcolm curses, sounding breathless. “I need something to work the keyhole with.”

JT swallows hard, pressing his head back against the metal. His brain is working furiously, trying to figure out what they have that they can use. His belt is gone, his gun and radio with it. The cuffs… well, he’s regretting carrying those with him at all, because they’re currently clamped around his wrists, cutting off his circulation. 

“Can you get into my pocket?’ He isn’t sure if it’s still there, or if Malcolm has the strength to turn it into something useful, but it’s a last-ditch effort. “Front right.”

Malcolm doesn’t answer, but he tries. Fumbles with the edge of JT’s pocket, and the cop tries to shift up, stretch out his leg to make it easier. 

It takes longer than it should, but Malcolm finds it. Pulls out the little silver disc with corrugated edges. 

Silence follows as the kid stares at it, and for a hopeful moment, the cop thinks he won’t recognize it. Won’t remember. 

“You kept it,” Malcolm whispers. Something awed and far-away in his voice. 

“Of course I did.” 

JT swallows the lump in his throat, wondering what’s going through the profiler’s head. It’s stupid, he thinks. Too soft, too sentimental. That something like a throw-away beer bottle cap, after all this time, still means the world to him. A memory in metal that’s kept him awake countless nights, heartbroken. Dreaming, wishing. Replaying little meaningless, stolen moments over and over again so he doesn’t lose them completely. 

Malcolm doesn’t say anything else, and JT desperately wishes he could see him right now. Look in his eyes, get an idea of what he’s thinking. 

Instead Malcolm drags himself away, and he must have found some sharp corner to work with because JT hears him grunt. Hears the grating sound of metal on metal. The bottle cap is flimsy, pliable and worn with time, and he knows the kid would make quick work of this under better circumstances. 

The cop finds himself praying again, casting desperate, scatter-fire pleas into the silence in his head. Willing this to work, because the alternative is too much to think about. It’s too terrifying to imagine DeSantis or one of his thugs coming back in, catching them red-handed in the middle of a half-assed escape attempt.

The kid is back, and he’s shaking harder than ever before as he presses an arm against JT’s. Trying to prop himself up long enough to work on those damned cuffs. 

The cop holds his breath, holds every muscle in his body as still as he can muster. He can’t see what Malcolm is doing, can’t tell if the kid managed to rip up that bottle cap and turn it into something useful. He can only hope. 

It’s the last time, he thinks to himself as one cuff pops open, that he ever plans to underestimate Malcolm Bright. 

Gasping in shock, JT pulls his arm free, wincing as pins and needles shoot through his fingers. He pushes himself up on wobbly legs, his body quick to remind him of every new ache and pain. None of that seems important as he turns to Malcolm, catches the kid as he slumps.

“I’m so fuckin’ proud of you,” JT pulls the profiler against his chest, careful to avoid the damage he can see. 

Malcolm grips him back, his entire body sinking like he’s finally running out of strength. 

“We’re getting out of here, you hear me?” JT promises him, eyes already scanning. Desperate to find anything he can use as a makeshift weapon. 

“The crates.” Malcolm nods tiredly, and he looks like death warmed over as JT helps ease him down to a seat. His palm falls open against his knee, slick and bright with blood. “Check the crates.” 

The cop figures that’s his only option right now, but it’s easier said than done, too. The crates are nailed shut. He levers one open with a considerable amount of sweat and vulgarity. 

“Holy shit.” 

Vacuum-sealed bricks of white powder lay in neat rows under a cushion of sawdust. JT pries one out and hefts it into his hand, eyes wide. “That’s….”

“A lot of coke?” Malcolm smiles, exhausted. “Too bad it’s not a rocket launcher.”

JT pries a four-inch long nail out of the wood. “Fuck. Time to improvise, I guess.”

“You’re gonna do  _ what  _ with that? Prison shank somebody?”

JT looks at Malcolm, gripping the nail in his palm, and thinks he’d do a lot worse than that if it came down to it. Whatever it took to make sure DeSantis never laid a finger on the profiler again. 

He takes the twisted remains of the bottle cap from Malcolm’s palm, swallowing hard to see that it’s covered in blood. He’s not as smooth, his hands not as steady, as he would like, but he makes it work. Gets the other cuff popped open and tucks them into his back pocket. 

Just to make sure he didn’t miss anything, he does another quick search of the cramped space. Their kidnappers weren’t kind enough to leave anything useful lying around, and they don’t have the time to pry open the rest of the crates. 

It’s now or never, he thinks.

He helps the kid to his feet, relieved to see that he looks a little more coherent now. The barest tinge of color sitting on his cheeks, like all he needed was a moment or two to rest. 

JT pulls the door open slowly, relieved to find it isn’t locked because he doubted anyone expected them to make it this far in the first place. The hallway beyond is lit by dim strips of safety lighting close to the floor, splitting off in either direction at the far end. 

“Coast is clear,” he mutters to Malcolm. “Think you’ve got a last hurrah in you, kid?”

Malcolm stands with his back to the wall, close to JT’s shoulder. He meets the cop’s eyes, translucent blue and shining. His cheek is split and bleeding, but he looks like he means it when he nods hard, just once. 

JT grips his makeshift weapon hard, his palms slick with sweat, and steps out into the hallway. He hugs the wall, staying in front of Malcolm because if there are going to be any unwelcome surprises headed their way, he doesn’t want the kid in the crosshairs. 

At the end of the hallway he peeks his head around the corner, checking both directions for signs of life. Pulls back quickly when he spots two shadowed figures walking their way.

“Shit,” he swears softly under his breath. Frantically working through his options, because retreating back to that hellhole isn’t one of them. 

“I believe in you, too,” Malcolm says so quietly that JT thinks he might have imagined it. 

JT turns to look at him over his shoulder, too surprised for a real response. 

Malcolm looks at him, and his eyes are sparks of coal in the dim light. That massive scar thrown into sharp relief. 

“I think this is one of those times when violence actually is the answer,” the profiler says to him quietly. His voice carrying the absolute conviction JT lacks. 

They don’t have time for more than that. The footsteps are too close, too steady. Almost on top of them. JT forces himself to take a deep breath. He turns that massive nail over in his hand and braces his thumb over the flat head. 

Maybe he isn’t quite as quick as he used to be in his youth, not as practiced, rusty at the edges. But he’s still fast enough that all he sees is a surprised face flash in front of his own before he does what he needs to. Lifts up his improvised blade and plunges it into the side of the guard’s neck. 

The man gurgles; the second thug lets out a shout of shock and alarm, and he recovers too quickly. Hits JT like a freight train and slams him against the hallway wall. JT hopes it was enough, that the first guy is down for the count so he can focus, and he manages to latch onto an arm. Bring his free hand up to block the blow that comes down towards his head. 

He grunts as a heavy fist lands in his gut, but he didn’t spend all those years boxing for nothing. He brings both forearms up to block the next punch, and fires back with a hook of his own that connects with a satisfying crunch and leaves his knuckles stinging. It pushes the man back, buys him a moment of space. 

“Hey!” Malcolm yells, and it gets the guard’s attention. Makes him turn sharply and let out a sound of surprise and pain as Malcolm kicks him, hard. 

It’s the moment of distraction JT needs, and he lunges forward, wrapping his arm around the thug’s neck. Pulling him in close and bracing with his other arm. The man struggles, hard, but JT’s running on sheer adrenaline and the terrifying knowledge that this moment could be the only thing standing between them and an ugly death. He holds on tight as they go to the ground, squeezing until he feels the fight fade. The body goes still in his arms and he doesn’t let up, doesn’t stop squeezing until he feels his muscles start shaking with the strain.

Grunting, he drops the body to the floor and sucks in ragged gulps of air like he just ran a marathon. Levers himself to his feet.

“Goddamn,” JT stares down at the two motionless bodies, breathless. “Did you just kick him in the nuts?”

Malcolm leans heavily against the wall, his skin the color of paper. He nods hard. “Maybe. I wasn’t really aiming? I think he deserved it.”

The cop doesn’t think he can argue with that one, and there’s no time to stand there and think about what he just did. What he had to do. It's sheer luck that they came out on top considering neither of them are exactly in peak condition, and he’s not going to waste time questioning the semantics.

He bends down and yanks the nail out of the thug’s neck, his gut churning a little at the wet, squelching sound it makes as he slides it free. He wipes it off on his jeans, trying damn hard not to think about it too much. 

“Come on,” he jerks his head at Malcolm. “Let’s move.”

Malcolm doesn’t have the energy left to reply, to do much more than push off the wall and follow with faltering steps as JT continues their push down their hallway. Desperate to find an exit, signs of light. He has no idea how much time has passed, but it feels like too much, too long. It’s like there’s a countdown clock in his head, ticking down. Urging him forward. 

Countless twists and turns later, they haven’t run into any more guards, and the cop isn’t sure if that’s by design. His paranoia is kicking into high gear, telling him that somebody has to be missing the two men he took out. Maybe they already found them, and they’re just waiting for JT and Malcolm to stumble headfirst into a wall of angry thugs with a grudge. His heart is racing, and every scuff of his own boots is echoing off the walls, leaving him jumpy. 

There’s a stairway up ahead, wider than the ones that came before it, and JT feels hope kick up in his chest like a lightning bolt. A soft glow of diffused light is shining on the steps, and it’s not that yellow artificial kind from fluorescent bulbs, or the harsh white of safety strips. It looks like daylight, and it gives him renewed energy. Hope. 

Like all good things, that doesn’t last long. 

JT makes it as far as lifting one boot onto the bottom step, eyes fixed on the porthole window far above and the clouds beyond it. The window blinks out of sight as a figure steps in front of it from the upper deck.

His breath catches in his throat and he reaches back, pushing Malcolm behind him, off the steps. To the doorway where they can get out of the line of fire quickly, if it comes down to that.

DeSantis stands at the top of the steps, shaking his head down at them. One hand tucked into his pocket and the other holding a gun at his side, flashing so they can both see it.

“You two are trouble,” DeSantis flashes a Cheshire cat smile, and he almost looks impressed. “And now it’s just you, and—what, your little improvised knife?—versus an actual gun? I don’t have your training, detective, but I think you can probably guess how those odds look at the moment.”

JT keeps pushing Malcolm behind him with one hand, trying to urge him to get out of sight. He feels the profiler shaking. Fumbling for something in the dark. 

“Still, I applaud your effort. Human ingenuity under pressure is really something amazing to behold, isn’t it?”

Something cold and metal is pressed into JT’s outstretched hand behind his back. He grips it and feels his pulse jump. 

It’s a gun.

He feels it out with his hand, running his thumb over a cold steel cylinder, pulling back the hammer. He can’t begin to guess where it came from. How Malcolm got his hands on it, why he didn’t bring it up before now. It doesn’t matter. 

“You’re right,” JT says, and he impresses himself with how level he manages to keep his voice. “We had to try, right? But I guess it’s time to know when we’re good and beat.“

DeSantis smiles, and his hubris is just strong enough that he buys the lie. Hook, line, and sinker. 

“See? I knew you weren’t quite as dumb as you looked.” He cranes his neck, looking past JT to level a lewd sneer at the profiler. “And would you look at that? Your partner’s even prettier covered in blood. Who knows, I just might take out your punishment on him.”

The cop palms the revolver, taking a deep breath through his nose. “That would be a mistake.” 

JT steps back, shoving Malcolm out of the way as he raises his hand. Pulls the trigger and listens to the gun explode in his hand. He doesn’t wait to see if he hit his target, ducking out of the doorway next to Malcolm.

DeSantis is swearing and gunfire explodes in the hallway, so JT figures he missed. He presses his back against the wall and examines the revolver in his hand. He has five rounds left. 

“Nice shot,” Malcolm gasps, a shit-eating grin lights up his face. It’s an expression that sparks something in JT’s chest. Warmth, affection, something too close to love.

“Thanks,” JT fires back sarcastically, trying uselessly to shelter Malcolm from the debris as shots ring down the hallway, echoing and ricocheting off the metal surfaces. 

“I’ve changed my mind, Detective.” DeSantis’ voice carries down the hallway, and JT’s satisfied to hear that he sounds a little breathless. “They really don’t need to get you  _ both  _ back in one piece, do they? I’m going to fuck that little profiler of yours and make you watch.”

It’s an empty threat, a taunt thrown out into the stalemate, but the cop feels Malcolm tense beside him. 

They’re at a deadly impasse, and he knows it. He’s all too aware that they’re outmanned and badly outgunned, and if DeSantis wanted to send his thugs down the stairs to finish them off, he might be able to take one or two with him. If he’s lucky. If he’s fast.

“Come on, Detective,” DeSantis is calling to them. Taunting. “Give it up. You’ve had your fun.”

“Fuck off!” JT yells over his shoulder, letting all of his rage and tension bleed into it because he doesn’t care anymore. He doesn’t care about pissing the other man off, or making things worse, because right now he isn’t even sure that’s possible. 

From where he’s sitting, there’s no two ways about it. They’re both well and truly fucked. 

A blood-slicked hand, shaking, slides into his own and squeezes weakly. JT grips him back, hard. 

“You know, this ain’t the worst way I could be goin’ out,” he says to Malcolm quietly. “Not by a long shot.”

Malcolm smiles, and for a heart-stopping moment, that’s all that matters. Blue eyes and real smiles. 

The boat rocks without warning, the ground beneath them shifting. Without the wall to hold them up, the cop isn’t even sure they could have kept their feet. The sound is followed quickly by an explosion of noise like metal on metal, and it’s not until JT catches the loud voices shouting down the stairs that he understands what’s happening. 

“NYPD! Hands up, hands up! Drop it!” 

He feels Malcolm grip his hand tight, feels the unspoken hope coursing through the kid like an energy he can latch on to. He listens to heavy footsteps, boots on plate metal, more than he can count. Strains his ears to catch the voices that give high-pitched commands, and holds his breath for gunfire. It never comes.

Lightheaded with relief and adrenaline, he almost jumps when ESU comes pouring down the stairwell, helmets lit with too-bright flashlights and radios crackling.

“Boy are we glad to see you,” JT shakes his head, lowering his gun as he processes it all. Understands that after the hell they’ve been through, backup finally arrived. They’re safe.

“Likewise, detective.” The sergeant nods at him, pulling off his helmet to look the pair of them up and down. He turns briefly to call into his radio, and it’s strange to hear themselves referred to as  _ hostages _ but JT’s not about to split hairs about that one. 

“Any injuries,” the sergeant questions when he turns his attention back to JT. “We have EMS staging on the docks.”

JT looks over his shoulder at Malcolm, who is still pressed against the wall and staring at the ESU operators like they’re aliens from another planet. 

“Nothing we can’t walk off,” the cop shrugs, wrapping one arm around the kid’s shoulders protectively. He tucks the revolver into his waistband, knowing it’s poor form without a holster, but unwilling to let go of the only defense he has just yet. 

They wait for the ESU operators to file past them, splitting off into teams to sweep the lower decks. After that they take the steps upwards slowly, Malcolm hanging onto him like a puppet with cut strings. It’s a slow climb, but the door above is propped open, letting in fresh air and clean light, and it keeps them moving. Putting one foot in front of the other. 

Blinking hard, holding onto each other like their last lifeline, they step out into the sun.

JT fills his lungs with that clogging, dirty harbor air, and thinks he’s never tasted anything so sweet in his entire life. 

At the end of the long metal platform Gil is climbing onto the deck, and his face breaks as he catches sight of them. It’s like watching years of stress and pressure drain off the man in the space of a heartbeat, and then the Lieutenant is full on running for them. 

JT barely feels it as arms wrap around him, around Malcolm, pulling them both into a massive bear-hug he doesn’t plan to resist. 

“Look, I’m an old man,” Gil is laughing, sounding immeasurably relieved. “I don’t think my heart can keep up with this kind of stress.” 

“We’re okay,” JT says into his shoulder, his eyes fluttering as the strength drains out of him, because his body knows what his head is still trying to piece together. 

The fight is over. It’s done.

Gil pulls back, resting one hand in Malcolm’s hair like he can’t stand to let go. 

“You two are a disaster together,” the lieutenant sighs. “You do know that, right?”

JT grins back, exhausted. He knows. 


	12. erlebnisse

**.**

**erlebnisse**

{err-líb-niss-uh} German

_ (n.)  _ the experiences, positive or negative, that we feel most deeply and through which we truly live; not mere experiences, but Experiences 

**.**

It’s the middle of the night and the whole team is gathered up, paper cups and cellphones in hand. This time, they’re circled around a hospital bed instead of the colorless boardroom table in a glass-walled room at the precinct. 

Dani’s wearing a wrinkled t-shirt with a hole in the sleeve, and her hair is thrown up into a lopsided bun. JT thinks he’s never seen her look so haggard. In it’s own way, it’s a little heartwarming: to see the evidence of her concern, usually so carefully hidden under layers of scathing sarcasm.

Gil on the other hand, has made no effort to pretend that this day wasn’t absolute hell on him. Instead of stepping out to answer his phone, he ignores it, or picks it up and tells whoever is on the other end that he can’t talk. The only exception is Jackie, who calls twice, and then he puts her on speaker and sets the phone on Malcolm’s pillow so the kid can prove he’s alive. Between jumbled spanglish and tears, JT can only gather that she’s out of town somewhere, though she’s clearly been kept up to date.

And then there’s Malcolm. The kid looks impossibly small under a pile of hospital blankets, face bruised and mottled, skin sallow. His eyes are still that same shade of heart-stopping blue, and JT thinks he likes the spark he sees in them. It’s good to see that everything they went through, as dark as it was... at least it didn’t break the kid’s spirit. 

JT took his turn running the emergency room gauntlet too, and he still has the ugly white hospital bracelet to prove it. After being sent on his way with a handful of painkillers and a  _ thank you for your service, _ he made camp here. With Gil and Dani, and Malcolm all bundled up in bandages. Crowded into a hospital room too small to hold them all comfortably, riding out the tail end of the adrenaline.

Malcolm and JT made it off the ship—by luck or maybe just sheer willpower—ten hours ago, but it feels like a lifetime. 

The cop hasn’t had a chance to talk to the kid since their well-timed rescue, and he figures that’s probably for the best. Over the past twenty-four hours alone, they’ve asked a lot of themselves, of each other. Pushed their bodies and minds past the breaking point. 

Malcolm, maybe literally.

The kid either can’t sleep or won’t, and the rest of the team has taken it upon themselves to stand guard. A self-imposed task they don’t resent in the slightest, because there’s nowhere they’d rather be. 

Malcolm lays on his side, his arm bandaged back up and tucked against his chest, his wrist in a brace. His eyes are half-lidded and glazed with pain and medication, but he seems determined not to lose his battle with sleep. Doing a damn impressive job of fighting it, too. 

“You don’t have’t stay, y’know…” the profiler slurs when Gil catches his eyes. It’s not the first time he’s said it, either.

“You’re right,” Gil breezes. “I could be dying of a heart attack at home, by myself. Quietly.”

Malcolm’s lips twitch into a smile and he blinks, long and slow. JT isn’t sure what they’re pumping into the kid to make him this lethargic, but he desperately hopes it’s the good stuff. 

The cop just stares at the kid, thinking of strained conversations in the dark, and finds himself thanking whatever higher power might be listening that they’re here now. That they both survived, mostly unscathed. 

It’s sobering, too, because they  _ made it. _ Came out the other side of a case that could have so easily destroyed them both. 

It destroyed so many lives, left so many people dead, or irreparably shattered, and that’s a whole other mess of guilt JT doesn’t know how to unpack. It’s that surreal feeling that comes over him sometimes, a trademark of their line of work. Thinking how unfair it really is, that they get to go home. Fall into a warm bed, eat a hot meal. Call their families and talk about weekend plans. 

No matter what winning looks like, it never really feels like a victory. Just another war they made it through, carrying new scars. New layers to the survivor’s guilt that dogs their steps like a bad cough. Little moments steeped in pain with no closure in sight, just living in the new world. The afterwards.

It feels like a happy ending, a lucky break. A moment of sunlight cracking through the clouds, but it isn’t, not really. It never is.

“You know you’re going to have to come in tomorrow,” Gil says softly as the two of them sit there in silence. Watching Malcolm drift off. He seems reluctant to steer the conversation towards work, but it’s a cold necessity. “Give a statement about what happened.” 

“Yeah.” JT nods tiredly. “I know.”

He doesn’t want to think about it either, and in the grand scheme of things it all seems almost trivial. Absurd to think about going back to the daily grind, to statements and paperwork, after everything they’ve been through. 

Gil sighs deeply, shaking his head like he’s thinking the same thing, and scratches at his beard. “We ID’d the man you shot. Ricardo Conti.” 

JT blinks and turns to look at him, thinking he’d almost forgotten about that fight. Whether it was a day or a week ago. All he’s had time for, the only person occupying his mind… is Malcolm. He isn’t sure how to answer that, so he doesn’t try.

“He was DeSantis’ cousin,” Gil continues without prompting. “Twice removed, or something. Bottom line is, we’re thinking DeSantis somehow blamed Malcolm for his death.”

That makes a little more sense than it should, and JT shakes his head. “What, they thought  _ he  _ shot the guy?”

“Apparently. Explains why they were so determined to abduct him, rather than any of us.”

JT grimaces, guilt creeping in all over again. It sits heavy in his gut. The knowledge that once again, he was responsible for Malcolm's misfortune, even if it was indirectly. 

“If it makes you feel any better… I think we can safely assume that he was planning to kill you both in the long run. Whether or not his demands were met.”

JT chuckles mirthlessly. “Yeah, that makes me feel loads better.”

Gil hides a smile behind his coffee cup.

“I kinda hoped they were gunnin’ for a cop, and just accidentally grabbed him instead,” JT muses aloud. “Easier than thinkin’ he’s a target just for bein’ around us. Caught up in all this.”

Something pained and complex flickers across Gil’s features, and he purses his lips. “This isn’t the life I wanted for him, either.” 

They both go quiet after that, and maybe it’s the guilt that comes with talking about the kid like he isn’t even there. Unconscious or not, it feels like betrayal. Words unsaid running beneath the surface. Dani is nodding off in her chair, cheek pressed against her palm, chin dipping towards her chest. It’s doubtful she’ll remember a word. 

“Hey,” Gil nudges her chair with his foot. “Let me drive you home, huh?”

Dani’s chin jerks up, and she blinks blearily at Gil and over to Malcolm’s bed. “He fell asleep?” Her voice is thick with exhaustion.

“Finally.” 

“Good,” she nods, still half-lucid. “Fuck, it’s been a day.”

JT couldn’t agree more. He watches Gil and Dani slowly gather up their things, phones and hoodies and hospital blankets. Empty coffee cups finally making the trip to the trash can, chairs pushed back towards the wall. It’s hard to imagine that any of this will ever feel normal again, but he knows it will. With time and repetition, everything will go back to the way things were. 

The lieutenant seems lost in thought, like he’s still trying to work through it all himself. Process. 

“Back on the ship…” Gil interrupts himself with a hand that runs over his chin. “I know I shouldn’t be asking about it before you give your statement, but humor me… where did that gun come from?”

JT nods his head at Malcolm, his heart doing that funny little flutter at the sight of dark lashes, closed in sleep. “That was all Malcolm. I’m guessin’ he pulled it off one’a DeSantis’ thugs after we, uh…” JT pulls his shoulders up sheepishly, thinking it’s probably not the time to be dwelling on the fates of their captors. “Well. Shit happened. Guess it goes without sayin’, he kept a clearer head than I did. I was maybe runnin’ kinda hot.”

Gil grins. “I can’t say I blame you. Anyway, save the details for the investigators. You’re going to stay?”

“Of course.” Maybe he’s misreading Gil’s knowing look, but he hopes it goes without saying.

“Good.” Gil nods, and he looks relieved. “Get some sleep tonight, if you can.”

JT doesn’t think that’s likely to happen, but he nods agreeably anyways and half-heartedly waves back as Gil and Dani step out. 

He’s left alone in the room, the lights dim. Silence aside from Malcolm’s soft breathing and machines beeping quietly in the background. Even with that scar, tracing across his features like a lightning bolt, he looks impossibly young like this. Lighter, like the weight he carries is gone for a few blessed hours. 

The solitude relaxes the cop in a way that he couldn’t before, and didn’t even realize it. Sucks the tension out of his limbs and leaves him slumped in his chair, feeling impossibly heavy. Like the gravity holding him down has doubled and he doesn’t want to think about fighting it. 

He finds himself replaying memories, sluggish and faded. Thinking about blue eyes sparking in the shadows. Visions of violence and terror. Malcolm close to him through all of it, warm. Stronger than he has any right to be with everything he’s gone through.

Most of all, he thinks, amazed, about the delicate balance of it all. How close disaster came, how narrowly they escaped it each time. There’s no doubt in his mind that neither of them would have made it out without the other, and that’s a hard pill to swallow too. Coming back together like this after so long apart, and they’ve already folded back into each other. Leaning so heavily on one another like it wasn’t a lifetime, but just a matter of moments. A breath, and they’re one again. 

JT has no idea what the future holds now, he just knows he can’t imagine one without Malcolm in it. He isn’t sure how he survived ten years like this. With that wound inside him, bleeding onto anyone who dared to get too close. 

It’s even more amazing to him that Malcolm survived this long, he thinks, with the way the kid seems to walk around attracting trouble like a magnet. All the terrible things that have happened in the kids life that JT missed. Things he couldn’t stop, or protect him from. 

“It’s not your fault,” Malcolm mumbles, and the cop jumps.

“Shit, kid. Thought you were asleep.” It’s uncanny, he thinks, that even doped senseless the profiler can all but  _ hear _ him thinking.

Malcolm makes a soft humming noise, and his eyelashes flutter weakly. A hint of blue sparks through, and JT smiles at him. 

“It’s not,” the kid repeats like a whisper.

“What isn’t?” The cop is mystified, wondering how the profiler does that. How he manages to keep on doing it, half-conscious and high. 

“Any f’it.”

The cop huffs, shaking his head fondly. Malcolm is already out again, his features going slack, his face turned halfway into the pillow. 

JT is thinking hard about what he told Malcolm back on that freighter, when they were both in cuffs and terrified. Trying not to believe it could be their last day together, their last day alive. 

He wonders if the kid believed him, and more importantly, if he’ll give JT the chance to say those words again. Safe and sober and free of looming uncertainty.

It’s these thoughts that keep him awake for most of the night, standing silent vigil. Dozing off occasionally and snapping back to awareness to blink at the nurses and techs that come shuffling into the room at intervals. He stays until sunlight peeks through the edges of the curtains and Gil comes back, Jackie in tow, to relieve him. 

He lingers in the doorway, watching wistfully as Jackie fawns over the profiler and no small amount of tears are shed. Gil is standing closeby, rubbing circles into his wife’s shoulders. 

As he silently makes his exit, the cop wonders distantly if the kid has any idea how much he’s loved. What it would take to make him finally see it. 

**.**

JT spends most of the day sleeping, still trying to shake off the physical and emotional toll taken on his body by the week’s chaotic events. It’s like coming off a bad hangover, the kind that didn’t involve alcohol but adrenaline instead. Terror, fight-or-flight instincts dumping like poison and opioids into overclocked veins. The aftermath is exhausting.

He plods into the station sometime in the afternoon, feeling like a zombie. The detectives send him right back home after a brief conversation. Tell him to take a few days to get his wits about him, so he must look about as healthy as he feels. He checks his phone for updates and Gil tells him they discharged Malcolm, making it clear he doesn’t agree with that choice in the slightest.

JT drives himself home from the precinct without remembering the trip, and sleeps some more. 

It’s dusk. The living room blurring into shades of blue-grey. He made it into a clean pair of sweatpants after his shower, and put an hour or so into lethargically wandering around his apartment. Straightening things up that aren’t out of place, moving books or picture frames from one spot to the next and back again. Thinking that he should be busy, should be doing something, but lacking any real energy to find a meaningful task.

Eventually he gets tired of distracting himself too, loses the energy for it. He settles on the couch, his head laying on the cushioned armrest at an angle that soothes his sore neck and back. 

His eyes snap open when a knock sounds at his front door, and he doesn't remember shutting them. It’s impossible that much time has passed because the room is still dim with the dying light. 

The door swings open and he isn’t sure if he’s surprised to see Malcolm. Maybe he was waiting for him all along and didn’t even know it. He doesn’t have time for a greeting, isn’t pressured to come up with the right words to say. 

There’s a heartbeat in time where they just stand there, looking at each other. Reading damage and exhaustion in the bruises they can see. In the ones they can’t, poorly hidden just beneath the surface. Trophies of a hard-won war.

Before JT can blink the kid is in his arms, soft lips pressed hard against his own. It’s a kiss full of pain and need and longing, loaded with all the heated desperation of moments they almost lost. Almost didn’t survive.

It’s second nature to kiss him back. To pull him in tight and lose himself. Hands move against him and his brain shakes off that dragging lethargy in the space of a heartbeat. 

This, he thinks. This is what being alive really feels like.

He lets Malcolm push him backwards, against the wall just inside the entryway. Lets the kid cling tight to him because god help him, it’s all he wants in the world right now. After everything, he doesn’t have the strength to say no. And he doesn’t want to. 

Whether it’s right or wrong, by some miracle Malcolm is here now. Pressed against him, warm and real and alight with a decade of buried need. 

JT is the one who guides them to the couch, feeling like if their lips part for a millisecond he might actually suffocate. He falls back against the soft cushions and brings Malcolm with him, because he’s not in his right mind but he’s sure as hell not going to hurt the kid, either. Isn’t blind to the bruises and bandages.

He hears himself groan, and it isn’t even his voice anymore. This is too good, too right, to have any place in his fucked-up limbo of a life. Like waking up for the first time and remembering what it’s like to really  _ feel _ something. Or maybe just dreaming it, desperate to relish it as long as possible. 

“Did you mean it,” Malcolm pants against his lips, pulling back only far enough to look down at JT with an expression the cop can’t read.

“Whatever it was, fuck yes I did,” JT moans, because his entire body is on fire and if he doesn’t taste Malcolm’s lips again he thinks he might die right there on the spot.

“You said you never stopped loving me,” Malcolm repeats, pulling away from JT’s lips and it sounds important. Like he needs to hear it again. “Did you mean that?” 

Clarity comes seeping back in, like cracks of light through a window, and JT thinks of a dark room full of pain. Thinks of finally telling Malcolm all the heavy things he never imagined he’d say out loud. 

“I meant it,” he says, threading his fingers through chestnut hair. “I love you, kid. I never found a way to stop.”

Malcolm’s face crumples, and it’s enough to flush rational thought through JT’s veins. Remind him that it’s not all sexual tension and repressed emotion. It’s real.

He kisses Malcolm again, slower this time. Deeper. Savoring it, because whether or not he ever gets this chance again, it’s his now. And it’s a chance he damn well doesn’t plan to waste.

It’s always been tough for him to tell what the kid’s thinking, but he doesn’t feel that way now. He’s high on it, lightheaded with long limbs pressed against his own, feeling like someone wants him just as badly as he wants them. 

Not someone, he tells himself. _ Malcolm. _ The only person he’s really wanted for as long as he can remember. 

Malcolm’s hands are running over his chest, gripping his shirt. Slim hips grinding down against his own, and if that doesn’t send rational thought flying straight out the window then nothing does.

He lets the kid set the pace, unsteady hands fumbling with his belt. There’s only a brief moment where he considers hitting the brakes, making the kid tell him out loud this is what he really wants. That goes out the window quick, too, because they’re both adults. Malcolm makes his own decisions, and he always has, and JT’s not going to question that right now. 

The cop groans, seeing stars as Malcolm’s hand closes around him. Stroking his length with a soft sound of need that does nothing to help him maintain control. He breathes into it, loud and shattered, but Malcolm’s breathless too and the air between them is warm with it. He reaches for the kid’s waistline, a thrill rushing through him when Malcolm arches upwards to give him better access. Helps him slide his belt free with clumsy fingers. 

He takes the kid in his hand, pressing their cocks together and stroking them with the same hand.

Malcolm lets out a little keening sound against his neck, shuddering, his hand closing around the cop’s shoulder. 

“I’ve got you,” JT whispers into his ear, his voice low and husky with the kind of feeling he can’t even try to control. “I’ve got you.”

Words are lost, and Malcolm holds onto him, one hand high on his shoulder. The other resting on top of JT’s big one as he strokes them together. 

He presses wet, open-mouthed kisses against the kid’s neck, his chin, his tongue flicking over ridges of scar tissue and Malcolm doesn’t shy away. Doesn’t hide from him, and that’s what really does it. That soul-deep trust, open, raw. Vulnerable and trusting him to make him feel something good. Something right. 

Lips seal over Malcolm’s, his tongue wrapping around the eager one that reaches out to greet him. JT isn’t capable of thinking much, but he’s definitely thinking if he died right now, he’d be a happy man. 

Malcolm shudders hard, crying out as he stiffens in JT hands. The cop doesn’t let up, tightening his grip as his hand slides, slick with pre-cum. The kid lets out a sound and comes in his hand, and JT isn’t far behind. Like he was just waiting for that moment to find release, his lips against Malcolm’s. Perfectly right for the first time in years. 

“Malcolm—” he groans into the kid’s mouth and just like that, he’s coming too. Dragging his hand in long, lazy strokes. Floating in the feeling as Malcolm pulses against him.

They’re both sweating, panting for air like they just broke the surface after too long underwater. Riding out the waves of pleasure crashing through them, against them. 

JT thinks he was wrong, earlier. It’s this moment, soft and warm and blinding.  _ This  _ is what living feels like. 

Malcolm is boneless and drained as he collapses against JT’s chest. The cop wipes his hand half-heartedly on his t-shirt and rubs circles against the kid’s back with the other. Loving the way it feels to breathe with that comforting weight against him, a heartbeat pounding in rhythm against his own. 

“I love you kid,” he murmurs again against sweat-damp hair. 

Malcolm grips him weakly, too spent to put much into it, and sighs. It’s a sound of content, something too close to happiness to be familiar. 

JT thinks he might have dozed off for a moment or two after that, because he jumps when Malcolm shifts. His hands tighten reflexively before he comes back to his senses, and he’s reluctant to let go. 

“I’m not going anywhere, don’t worry,” Malcolm whispers against his neck. JT can’t see him but it still sounds like he’s smiling. “Just—let me wash off.”

“You wanna shower?” It’s only half-joking, because JT’s as exhausted as he’s ever been but he thinks that wouldn’t last long if he got Malcolm under the hot water.

“Maybe next time,” Malcolm laughs. He shifts slowly, and he’s clearly still sore as he struggles to stand.

JT watches him, a dim shadow in the dark, and tracks his faltering steps.

“First door on the left,” he volunteers, his chest feeling warm at the sight of Malcolm here. In his apartment. Talking about  _ next time _ like he doesn’t immediately regret this.

He listens to the sink water run down the hall, still floating. Blissful and warm.

Eventually he can’t just lay there any longer, so he gets up too. Makes a trip into the kitchen to clean himself off as best he can. Malcolm is back on the couch when he finishes, and the sight of the kid sitting there, hair sweaty and tousled, tie askew, does funny things to the cop’s chest all over again. 

The kid’s eyes dart up as JT pads into the living room, looking a little embarrassed for reasons the cop can’t decipher. It’s an expression entirely at odds with how content he feels, how peaceful. 

“I didn’t want to be alone,” Malcolm admits, like it’s a confession he’s deeply ashamed of.

JT doesn’t question it. Doesn’t try to tell him that’s the last thing in the world the kid needs to apologize for. 

“Me neither,” he says instead. 

Malcolm looks up at him, and there’s a hint of that sadness back in his eyes. Like he wants something he’s no longer brave enough to ask for. JT still doesn’t know where this leaves them, where they go from here, but he thinks he at least understands that.

He holds his hand out, his heart fluttering when the kid doesn’t hesitate to take it. Helps Malcolm stand up slowly, leaning heavily on his good leg.

“Stay here tonight?” He asks, because he knows that Malcolm won’t. Because whatever the kid needs from him right now, JT thinks he needs it twice as bad. 

Relief floods those blue eyes, and the cop knows it was the right call.

**.**

JT wakes up. Slow and peaceful, coming up from the kind of deep, restful sleep where dreams didn’t come to haunt him. The sheets are tangled around his legs and the bedroom is comfortably warm. 

Malcolm is still there. Breathing deeply, his head pillowed on JT’s bicep.

It’s hard to breathe for a moment. Hard to think. Almost impossible to do anything but lay there with that warmth pressed against him and stare down at thick, dark lashes against pale skin. Careful not to wake the profiler, he throws his other arm around the kid’s waist and pulls him close. Dropping his nose into tousled, warm hair and breathing. Thinking he could easily get high on that smell. 

He’s blessedly content and it’s so unfamiliar that it seeps into him, and he doesn’t know what to do with that feeling. Years, endless nights spent aching and struggling and going to war with himself, all seem utterly meaningless in this moment. 

Sounds of life crawling through the blinds with the sunlight finally break the spell. Malcolm stirs in his arms, and waking up is slow for him, too.

JT holds on as long as the kid will let him, because he doesn’t have the first clue how Malcolm will react in the light of day. If he’ll come to his senses, take off, or start second-guessing something that felt so right the night before. 

As it turns out, he’s stressing himself out over nothing. Because Malcolm just sighs. Heavy and deep, like the weight of the world has lifted off his shoulders. He clumsily reaches for JT’s arm and pulls it against his chest, curling into it like a safety blanket. 

JT’s breath catches, and if his chest swells up anymore he’s pretty sure it’s going to burst.

Malcolm mutters something against his hand, his voice thick with sleep, and JT can’t catch the words but he doesn’t think he needs to. 

“Love you too,” he whispers into strands of hair, shining gold in the morning sunlight.

His eyes slide shut, and they go back to sleep. 

**.**

They spend the day in bed together. Despite their heated encounter the previous night, and JT certainly doesn’t regret that for a moment, he thinks this is just as satisfying. To wake up with a warm body pressed against his, the smell of Malcolm’s shampoo lingering in his nostrils. Bleary blue eyes and lazy smiles. 

They make trips to the bathroom to clean up, to the kitchen to make coffee, but they always come back. Tangled up in JT’s sheets like the world outside doesn’t matter anymore. They can hide away here in the dark, in each other, and stay that way until the world ends.

“You know, your dad showed up at the precinct.” JT says it quietly, his head propped up on one hand with his elbow on the mattress. The other hand is tracing idle patterns on Malcolm’s stomach. “Gil tell you that?”

Malcolm shakes his head, and he looks like a different person. Someone who isn’t self-conscious, walled in behind his own pain and rage. He’s beautiful. 

“I hope he arrested him,” Malcolm says like it’s not quite a joke. 

“He sure threatened to,” JT grins. “It was kind of like a… I don’t know, a clash of the titans or some shit.”

The profiler’s eyes sparkle. “You sure have a way with words.” 

Huffing, JT shakes his head at him fondly. “Your dad’s kinda…”

“Intense?”

“That’s it. He seemed to think you owed him a visit. Tipped us off that you were missing.”

That cloud is back, passing briefly across sky-blue eyes. “Is that so.”

JT raises an eyebrow at him, because it seems ridiculous at this point that the kid is still trying to hold on so tightly to his secrets. 

Malcolm sighs heavily, shaking his head just once. “It’s a long story,” he answers the unspoken question. 

JT reminds himself that if he has his way, they have all the time in the world. So he doesn’t ask, doesn’t push. He still feels the contact high that comes from the kid’s presence, the broken-down barriers of hurt and misunderstanding that have loomed between them too long. 

“I’m sorry,” Malcolm says quietly, hands playing idly with the blanket pulled up to his waist. Eyes distant. 

“What for,” JT questions patiently. He’s given up trying to guess about all the things Malcolm tries to apologize for. Most of which aren’t remotely his fault. 

“I—” Malcolm hesitates, eyes darting, and a blush colors his cheeks. “For last night.”

The cop blinks, thinking of their kiss in the doorway. Everything that followed, the way it warmed him up down to his bones.

“Gonna give a guy a complex apologizing about shit like that.” He means it to sound light-hearted, casual. But it’s not. He hopes to god Malcolm doesn’t regret it. 

Malcolm looks like maybe he doesn’t, but he’s still second-guessing himself. Always questioning, always doubting.

“I ain’t sorry,” JT goes on, shrugging. Trying to hide the shit-eating smile that threatens to break across his face at the memory. “I mean, I kinda enjoyed it.”

Malcolm looks at him hesitantly, a relieved smile tugging at his lips. “It probably wasn’t the right time.”

“Surviving a hostage situation and a shootout? Kinda felt like the perfect time to me.” JT takes a gamble, and leans forward, lips hovering over Malcolm’s. “What about now?”

He looks down at Malcolm, searching his face for any sign that this isn’t the right move. 

Malcolm looks back, and there’s no fear there. No shame or sorrow. Just hope. It’s a good look on him.

“Is this the right time?”

Malcolm’s breath catches, and he nods. 

JT kisses him. 


	13. fika

**.**

**fika**

{fee-ka} Swedish 

_ (n.) _ a moment to slow down and appreciate the good things in life

**.**

It’s early evening and the sun is low on the horizon. JT has a coffee in each hand as he retraces his steps from the small shop, back to the bench where Malcolm insisted on staying. His suspicion is that the kid’s leg is hurting him, that he doesn’t want to do any more walking than he has to. After the week they’ve had, he doubts that’s the only thing that’s hurting.

JT lets him have it and goes on the coffee run, trying not to let his anxiety get the better of him as he keeps an eye on Malcolm through the shop window. Fumbling with the handful of change he slaps down on the counter before finally telling the barista just to keep it. 

Nobody swoops out of the shadows to kidnap the kid, so he feels a little foolish on the walk back. He sets a paper mug in the profiler’s hands, satisfied to see that he’s shaking a little less than he was yesterday. He figures it’s progress. 

Malcolm nods his thanks. The bruises have started to fade, but they’ve morphed into brilliant blues and purples that somehow look even worse than they did fresh. The profiler hides it well, but it’s clear to anyone who takes a good look at him that he still has a long road ahead of him towards being healthy and whole. 

“Extra sugar.” JT presses his shoulder into the smaller one beside him as they sit there, wondering if he should ask about the wool coat in the summer heat, or if that’s too invasive. Even now, it’s hard to know where their boundaries are. What’s okay, and what isn’t.

“Thank you,” Malcolm sighs in relief as he breathes in the steam. “You’re too good for me.”

JT feels his lips twitch, thinking how utterly absurd a statement that is. “Not by a long shot.”

They sit in companionable silence, listening to the city buzz around them like a white noise machine, a familiar comfort in the chaos. Tires grumble against the pavement and pleasant voices carry from the outdoor tables at the bistro across the street. There’s a warm breeze in the air that’s wafting Bright’s too-sweet coffee into his nostrils, and JT thinks it’s about as content as he’s ever felt in his life. 

“So,” Malcolm all but whispers against his cup. “What now?”

The cop looks over at him, wondering what it says about him that he knows exactly what the kid means by that. 

He hesitates only a moment, battling his own doubts and insecurities. He reaches over and takes Malcolm’s bandaged hand in his own. 

“This is good,” he says, and finds he means it. “This.  _ This  _ is what’s now.”

The profiler squeezes his hand, hard, and there’s a desperation to it that doesn’t sit right. 

“I really didn’t think my life was set up for this… for someone.” Malcolm says it wistfully, longingly. Like he wishes more than anything he was wrong about himself. “What if… it’s all too much?”

JT breathes out though his nose, and there’s no simple answer for a question like that. He knows Malcolm’s thinking too hard, complicating everything in his overactive brain. Making mountains out of molehills. Thinking about the past and everything it might mean for the future. 

Considering all they’ve overcome, both together and apart, he can’t even fault the kid for that. 

“You wanna hear something crazy,” he volunteers into the silence, if only to break whatever destructive train of thought he’s pretty sure is careening through Malcolm’s head right now. 

The profiler looks surprised, but nods. He looks young again, inquisitive, hungry. Entranced by a big world full of adventure and mystery. It’s there and gone in a moment, a shadow of the kid JT used to know, back when they were both innocent and hopeful.

“I went to therapy,” JT says, nodding to himself. Probably about as surprised as Malcolm that it’s something he has the guts to admit out loud. “Only took me like, four years of fighting it. A couple’a critical incidents, and they forced me to go.”

Malcolm laughs, shaking his head. “I’d love to say I told you so, but it sounds like someone had to twist your arm in the long run.”

The cop dips his head, thinking about those first few sessions in a cozy office uptown, fighting the department-mandated psychologist every step of the way. Walking into that building every week like he was walking into a boxing ring. Always ready for a fight, always senselessly frustrated when he didn’t find one. Not the kind he could win. 

“It always got me thinkin’ about what you said,” JT sighs, hesitant to turn the conversation in a more somber direction. Back towards nights he’d just as soon forget, words he’s spent so many years regretting. “Bout askin’ for help. Tellin’ me it didn’t make me weak.”

He turns to look at Malcolm, watching the light play in his eyes. “You still believe that?”

Malcolm shakes his head, looks up. Catches the way JT is staring. That smile turns soft, going from self-deprecating to something else entirely in the space of a heartbeat. “I guess it’s easier said than done,” he breathes. 

“Tell me about it.” JT thinks he’s made some progress, and that’s something else he loves about the kid. That he really thinks things over, sees perspectives that aren’t his own. At least he does when his guard’s down like this, when he’s not busy being defensive and stubborn. 

“I guess I’m askin’ you the same thing you asked me back then. Take some help. I ain’t about to tell you that I can fix all your problems, but maybe… after everything, we can both let ourselves have something good. Is that too much to ask?”

Even as he says it, he knows he’s talking to himself, too. Giving himself permission to be happy, after so long counting  _ miserable _ as his everyday standard of  _ normal _ . Unless he’s way off base, he thinks Malcolm’s been right there with him. Pulling his pain tight around his shoulders like he does his coat. Wool in the summer. Heartache in the sun. 

“Did it help,” Malcolm asks by way of an answer. “Did it ever do any good?”

JT’s lips quirk. He settles back against the bench, eyebrows going up. “Y’know, after I stopped fightin’ it? I think it did.” 

The profiler mulls that one over, his cup in his hands, thumb propped under his chin. Like he’s perfectly content to sit there and smell his coffee without ever drinking it. “Are you sure you want to do this,” the kid finally says to his coffee cup, his voice little louder than a whisper over the hum of the city.

JT isn’t going to do either of them the disservice of playing dumb. He runs his thumb over the bandage on the back of Malcolm’s hand, and wonders if he’s ever going to be able to make the kid believe him. 

“If I tell you the truth, you gonna trust me?” JT lets his head fall towards Malcolm, trying not to smile at the sight of him, glowing in the sun. An angel with a mean battle scar.

Malcolm nods, and he looks nervous to make eye contact. Just staring at the ground.

The cop squeezes his fingers gently, wordlessly prodding him to be brave. To drag blue eyes up to his, the color of the ocean, the sky. All the vast and wild and boundless things that mystify him. 

“I’m sure,” he says simply. “I've been sure for a long time, kid.”

It’s not the first time he’s said it. Not the first time he’s done everything in his power to make Malcolm believe, once and for all, that this isn’t a second chance he’s willing to waste. He wants to tell him that, too. That he won’t ever get tired of saying it. That he doesn’t mind reminding him every day, every hour if he has to, that he's worth it.

Whatever Malcolm’s thinking, this seems to be the moment he decides to stop fighting it. To take JT’s words at face value, and the cop desperately hopes it lasts. 

The profiler breathes out, his entire body deflating with relief. “In that case… I need to show you something.”

**.**

The lights are off and Malcolm’s apartment is pitch-dark.

JT might be tempted to jump the kid’s bones right there on the spot, but there’s something in Malcolm’s demeanor that warns him there’s more to this. More to bringing him here, besides sexual tension and repressed need, ten years on the shelf. 

It’s the kind of unspoken meaning the cop still can’t entirely grasp, like a hidden treasure within sight, just out of reach. But he’s trying to learn.

He keeps his wandering thoughts to himself and takes his time looking around, studying the cushy loft on the outskirts of Soho where the cab dropped them off. The apartment is spacious, modern and strangely bare, and for some reason that makes the cop a little sad. Like maybe he hoped wherever Malcolm ended up, he made it his own. Filled every corner with colors and trinkets designed to bring him joy.

Instead the floors are hardwood, the spotless windows stretching from floor to ceiling. Square throw pillows sit at perfect right angles on a crisp leather sofa that clearly hasn’t been used much. They aren’t bent out of shape from nights on the cushions watching cable, or soft with use. There are no throw blankets or magazines or discarded mugs. The kitchen counters are eerily clean, aside from a row of colored pill bottles on the ledge, and there’s just one jacket hanging on the hook by the door. Impersonal and threadbare. 

There’s almost nothing to indicate the place is anything more than a real estate showroom for wealthy New Yorkers. The young, single professional’s ideal crash-pad, tailored to a crowded schedule and busy life. A stopping-in point. 

JT’s eyes travel, taking in every one of these small details, and it’s hard to imagine the kid living like this for so long. To imagine that someone so full of energy, full of life, could be distilled down to these blank walls and dull edges.

Malcolm slips his shoes off in the entryway like it's a force of habit, so JT follows suit, struggling with his bootlaces. The kid pads down the hallway and looks back briefly, like he isn’t sure the cop is actually following him. JT offers an encouraging nod. Lets Malcolm lead the way down a wide hall, to the tall, spotless white door with a gold handle that stands at the end.

Slowly, Malcolm opens the door and flicks the lightswitch up.

JT sucks in a surprised breath as he steps into what, he guesses, is Malcolm’s office. Then again,  _ office _ doesn’t really seem like the right word for this. Two desks, back to back, sit in the middle of the room. Cardboard boxes are pushed against the walls in crumbling stacks. Several laptops sitting atop a jumble of pens and case files. The same personal affects so obviously missing in every other corner of the apartment are all here, crammed into a single room. 

All four walls are crowded with bulletin boards and graph paper, though they’re hard to see now. They’re covered, and it looks like there was a careful, organized kind of order to it at some point. Rows of neatly lined photos, articles, and witness statements that have long since been layered over by countless others. Each one more rushed, more haphazard than the last. Mugshots and gorey crime scene photos, print off lists of DNA sequences and old phone records. Layer after layer of painstaking research, the kind that takes years to compile.

JT takes it all in, just trying to make sense of what he’s looking at. He steps forward slowly, heading for the far wall. Eyes fixed on the familiar face he sees staring back at him with a gleaming smile. 

“That’s…” He trails off, shaking his head in confusion. Trying to understand. 

“My father,” says Malcolm quietly from the doorway.

JT stares at the familiar face, all charm and confidence. Beneath Martin Whitly’s portrait is a picture of Gil Arroyo. Another of a young boy, and without asking, he knows it’s Malcolm. He’d recognize those eyes anywhere.

His mind is racing as he tries to piece it all together. Thinking of Malcolm’s estranged relationship with Doctor Whitly; recalling Gil’s mysterious allusions to a history of violence and restraining orders. His eyes dart over the cramped walls, the overlapped autopsy photos and missing persons articles from the late nineties. Endless streams of information fanning out like a spiderweb around one person. 

“You’re investigating your dad,” he makes an educated guess out loud. 

Investigating seems like a pretty mild word for what he’s looking at, all things considered. It’s the kind of FBI-style crime board that would put anything down at the precinct to shame. 

“Sad, isn’t it? That this—all of this—is probably the closest thing I’ll ever have to a legacy. My life’s work.” Malcolm limps into the room slowly, his right foot scuffing dully on the hardwood.

“No,” JT shakes his head firmly, a knee-jerk reaction but an honest one, too. “It’s not. Sounds like the guy’s a real bastard.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Malcolm laughs softly. He stands at JT’s shoulder, staring at the unnerving portrait, center stage. “Did I mention my family is kind of complicated?”

JT reaches out, lifts up the edge of a coroner’s report to frown at the article underneath. It’s from 1992, the words faded and the paper yellowed with time. In bold letters, the headline reads  _ SURGEON TERRORIZES NYC. _

JT casts Malcolm an incredulous look out of the corner of his eye, trying to read him. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” 

Malcolm sets his jaw, his shoulders. His whole body coiled up like a man ready for a fight. 

“Yes,” is all he says. “I am.” 

JT nods, his eyes traveling over the gory mosaic of photos and notes appraisingly. Despite his initial skepticism, he can’t help but think that Malcolm is, and has always been, the smartest person he knows. The single most intelligent person he’s ever met in his lifetime in fact, and now the cop is here. Standing in a room containing a project that the kid has undoubtedly poured countless years of his life into. Fixated on it, to a point that dangerously borders obsession. 

“You’re trying to prove that Martin Whitly is the Surgeon,” he breathes, propping his hands on his hips. Saying it out loud gives it weight. Transforms it from theory to something that sounds a whole hell of a lot like fact. “The same Surgeon who killed all those people in the nineties.”

“You asked—why he thought I was missing. Why he thought I was going to meet him. He gets like this sometimes, when I get too close, or dig something up I shouldn’t have. He starts to panic, calls me. Makes all sorts of threats and promises. That’s probably why he got so nervous when I didn’t come by, not that I would have in the first place—”

Likely realizing he’s going on an unplanned rant, the kid cuts himself off abruptly. Shakes his head, his shoulders with it. Reorienting himself like he didn’t plan to take things this far and now, he isn’t sure how to proceed.

JT doesn’t interrupt, thinking this is a good thing. Letting the kid air it all out, at his own pace, in his own way. It’s progress, if nothing else. 

“I know it sounds insane.” There’s a note of heavy defeat in Malcolm’s voice when he speaks again, like it’s all an old script he’s heard too many times. “I  _ know _ .” 

It’s the opposite of what JT’s thinking right now, and he shakes his head. “All the best ideas sound a little insane, right? I think… Well. I guess I think that if anyone would be able to catch a serial killer, it would be you.”

Malcolm stares at him, and a thousand emotions run through his eyes in the space of a heartbeat. “Besides Gil, you might be the only person who doesn’t think this is absolutely crazy.”

“So, the two of us that count? Got it.”

Malcolm’s surprised smile is full of relief. 

JT isn’t sure why Malcolm felt the need to show him this, but he gets the impression it wasn’t easy for the kid to do it. That it was deeply personal, vulnerable. Important. He’s starting to understand why. The kind of guts and dedication it must have taken Malcolm to pour so much effort into this, especially considering his relationship with the man in question. His own father.

“You know, if you feel like sharing the glory for putting the Surgeon behind bars...” JT shrugs, choosing his words carefully. “I might know a detective who’d help you out.”

“I’m not asking for help, I just—didn’t want you to find out, and think I was crazy...” Malcolm is rambling, all nerves and defensive energy. Like he worked himself up in his head, and now he doesn’t know what to do with JT’s unexpected acceptance. 

“You don’t have to ask,” JT says gently. “I want to. This is important to you, so... Now it’s important to me, too.”

“I’m not  _ normal, _ ” Malcolm confesses. Like he thought this revelation would be enough to scare the cop away and now he’s grasping at straws, for anything else that might do the trick. “I have a lot of bad days.”

Unwilling to let the inevitable spiral continue unchecked, JT grabs Malcolm gently by the elbow and pulls him close. Sets his arms on the kid’s shoulders so Malcolm can hide his face in his chest. 

“Me too,” he simply says, shrugging. 

“I mess up a lot,” Malcolm sighs. His words are muffled against JT’s arm.

“Me too,” the cop repeats. He tightens his grip by just a fraction. “Still tryna’ scare me away, kid? Figured you’d know better by now.” 

The profiler goes silent after that, and he feels more peaceful in JT’s arms. Like he’s relaxing, finding comfort, instead of working himself into a lather in his own brain. 

“C’mon,” JT murmurs against his hair. “We’ll work on this another day. Show me your place, huh?”

Malcolm nods, and his face has crumpled a bit when he pulls away. Like he just went toe-to-toe with more emotions he was prepared to face, right there in that brief moment in JT’s arms, and he’s still trying to recover from it.

“Thank you,” JT tells him. “For trusting me with this.”

Malcolm shakes his head, just looking up at him with shining eyes full of hope. Like the cop is anything special in the first place.

It’s tough for JT, because he so badly wants to enjoy the way Malcolm sees him. As someone whose trust is anything special, whose love is undeserved. It goes straight to his head but it shouldn’t. Because if he knows anything about Malcolm, he knows that JT shouldn’t be the first person to love him that way. To feel this way about him, scars and all. 

“Come on,” the cop pulls Malcolm with him, out of a room where he’s sure the kid has already spent too much time. “I wanna see how professors live. It’s real fancy on this side of the tracks.”

“We live like hermits, mostly,” the profiler laughs. “Locked up in offices, fixating on cold cases. Becoming head-case workaholics one obsession at a time.”

“Yeah, we’re not doing that anymore,” JT says lightly. “Now, you’ve gotta be a real person. Interact, be social and shit.”

Malcolm grimaces, but the cop doesn’t give him a chance to argue. JT drags Malcolm out into the bare living room and makes him mess up those perfect cushions on that spotless couch. Holds him afterwards as they lay there boneless, slick with sweat, high on each other.

For a few blessed hours, they’re not thinking about serial killers or old wounds or gunshots in the dark. They’re just thinking about each other. 

**.**

It’s evening and the sky is still streaked with the colors of the sun, long since vanished over the city skyline. Cicadas are humming intermittently in the trees, fireflies blinking lazily over the fresh-cut grass.

They’re back in Gil’s backyard, a firepit crackling on the patio that took no less than four of them to get started. The lieutenant’s still a little winded from that endeavour, stacking up logs on the edge of the cement before collapsing triumphantly into a wicker chair with his beer. 

Jackie has, as usual, gone out of her way to spoil Malcolm senseless, so the kid’s sitting in a low rocker padded with blankets and couch pillows. JT gets to sit close enough to hold his hand, so he’s not about to resent him for it. 

JT doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the look on Jackie’s face when he and Malcolm showed up together, hand in hand. JT in his old t-shirt, Malcolm in his suit. The unabashed range of emotions that came and went and ended in a shower of tears and lipstick-print kisses on Malcolm’s cheeks. JT got his fair share of the love too, though he managed to dodge the lipstick. 

Gil just stood back with his beer dripping condensation all over his shoes, looking relieved and smug as hell. Like he saw this coming all along, and was just proud to see the two of them finally figure it out. 

It’s an echo of that night weeks ago, when the yard was crowded with unfamiliar faces and thick with smoke off the grill. A senseless symphony of noise and laughter and muted music from the stereo on the deck. JT remembers how awkward he felt, how out of place, and thinks it’s funny how quickly things changed. How uncomfortable he was then; how relaxed he is now. 

By this point, Jackie’s fed them all an overly generous dinner and she’s still trying to get them to eat, undeterred by their protests. This time it’s those spicy chocolate cookies she’s passing around, scolding them when they try to refuse. JT thinks, not for the first time, that it’s nothing less than a miracle that Gil’s managed to stay healthy under this kind of pressure. He’s not sure he’d have that kind of willpower if their positions were reversed.

JT tries to firmly tell her no for the fourth time, and ends up eating two cookies anyway. Malcolm declines too, but he gets a kiss on the forehead and a stream of spanish endearments instead of a scolding. JT glares at him and shakes his head as he eats.

“If my stomach bursts, I’m blaming you,” he grumbles at the profiler. “This is some kinda psychological torture. Probably.”

Malcolm laughs softly, unsympathetic. “It’s a rite of passage. Just shut up and eat.”

He obliges, but only because he’s heady with contentment. That overstuffed satisfaction from eating too much and maybe the start of a good buzz. The air has cooled down enough that the fire is welcoming instead of blistering; Jackie and Gil are laughing together as she sits on his lap and the lawn chair creaks alarmingly. 

Dani shows up as it gets dark, Eve on her arm, and that gives Jackie a new target and a welcome distraction. From across the firepit, JT makes eye contact with her and shakes his head smugly. Dani flips him off and drinks her beer.

“Look at that,” Gil beams, popping another bottle. “The whole team gathered up, and we’re all in one piece. More or less. I think this calls for a celebratory Cuban.” The lieutenant pulls out a box of cigars he’d not-so-subtly stashed under his chair earlier, waiting for Dani to show up.

_ “Dios mío,” _ Jackie scolds, smacking him. “You’re not going to smoke those around Malcolm, you’ll put him back in the hospital! To even suggest it,  _ ay! _ Like a child, you are irresponsible.”

Dani laughs heartily, JT hides his behind a drink. Unwilling to attract enough attention to become her next target.

“Jackie,” Malcolm sighs with an air of long-suffering. “There’s nothing wrong with my lungs. Let Gil smoke his cigar.”

“I won’t hear of it,” she scolds, flipping her long hair over her shoulder. “You must rest, not suffocate in that awful smoke.”

Gil, good-natured as ever, just shrugs his shoulders and gives up the fight. He passes the cigars out anyway, telling them all to smoke when they get home. He even sneaks one to Malcolm while Jackie’s occupied with chatting Eve’s ear off, full of strange questions and unsolicited commentary.

JT thinks again about the unpredictable twists and turns that led him here, watching fireflies spark on the lawn. 

He looks over at Malcolm, and the profiler has finally traded out his coat for a button-down shirt rolled up to his elbows. Tweed vest, tie, and shoes all abandoned on the couch inside the back door. The kid’s been strangely zoned out, staring into the fire. An untouched glass of iced tea resting on his knee, because the meds he’s on don’t mix well with alcohol. 

“You okay,” JT asks quietly, squeezing Malcolm’s hand.

Malcolm’s eyes flicker to his and he nods, smiling. Looking tired, but strangely peaceful. 

That’s what he’s feeling, JT thinks. Peace. A sensation so unfamiliar he couldn’t even recognize it when it came, slowly, quietly. Creeping up on him like dusk falling. A steady series of moments where he forgot about work, about stress. About heartache and the uncertainty of the future.

It’s the first time in a long time that he’s felt like maybe, everything will turn out alright after all. 

Maybe it’s the stress of recent events, going through so many moments he wasn’t altogether certain he’d make it out of, that are triggering it. This retrospection, like an existential crisis hitting him out of left field. 

Whatever it is, his mind is drifting and it’s not all unpleasant this time. A bittersweet combination of the past and the present. And maybe for the first time, he’s thinking about the future too. He thinks that he’s been afraid so many times that he already peaked, done the best things he’ll ever do, and life is never going to get better. 

Now, he looks at Malcolm, and he thinks he was wrong. That maybe his best days are still ahead of him, waiting to surprise him. Exhilarating and beautiful in all their promise. 

“You’re doing it again,” Malcolm’s lips curl into a smile. He doesn’t even look over when he says it, like he can simply feel JT’s eyes on him. With as perceptive as he is, always throwing the cop for a loop, hell... He probably can.

“Get used to it,” JT grins, popping the top off the fresh bottle Dani dropped into his lap a few minutes ago. He reaches across to press the beer cap into Malcolm’s hand.

The profiler looks down at the touch, his eyes flashing with recognition and surprise. 

“That’s our new beginning,” JT smiles like a promise. “Don’t lose it.”

Malcolm’s bandaged hand curls around the bottle cap, his eyes dancing in the firelight. He holds onto it, pulling it up to his chest like it’s something precious. Something priceless.

He smiles at JT, and the cop thinks it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life.

“I won’t.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for Retrouvaille](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27197543) by [Lennie09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lennie09/pseuds/Lennie09)




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